“For Tom, who loves the sun. May it shine gently on him always.” This inscription, which I discovered on a memorial bench in Riverside Park in Manhattan, felt like a celebration of a fascinating life. In such a simple way, this small inscription encompasses the themes of my current body of work; the celebration of life, ghosts as memories and promises, and the confetti of existence. In my acrylic paintings, time is strung together. Found photographs allow the viewer to imagine the lives and experiences of the paintings’ subjects. Colorful ghosts remind us of the impact each of our lives have on other people, be that positive or negative. Our impact on each other is the truest form of remembrance and the celebration of a life lived. In general, I utilize calming blues and lavenders in order to spark a reflective mood in the viewer as well as strong darks as a symbol of death. However, the correlation of darkness and death is not to emphasize finality or fear. The idea that death as a subject is inherently “morbid and dark” is a fallacy. After all, darkness is the start of life: Space is darkness, seeds germinate in the darkness of the ground, and fetuses grow in the dark womb of their mother. Death is simply a new beginning.