After realizing I was navigating my life based on society’s expectations and family dynamics, things that told me what a woman “should” be, it became my mission to break out of these limitations at every turn and to rediscover my own voice. This experience has been liberating and at times overwhelming, and I explore these intense feelings in my portraits. With influences like Deborah Turbeville and Caravaggio, I illustrate women who have traded society’s expectation of composure and perfection for raw emotion and tension that’s either bubbling under the surface or completely spilling out. After I build the digital version on Procreate, I replicate each portrait on canvas using soft charcoal and acrylic. The charcoal allows me to release myself from all the should’s as I use it to emphasize the messiness of being an authentic woman, and the fast-drying acrylic lets me practice listening to my intuition as I make my way toward finding myself again.