Where My Mom Lives 2025

The series of paintings Where My Mom Lives 2025 is both a critique of dementia care and a tribute to my mother.

The paintings reflect how we are failing our most vulnerable in underfunded facilities with exhausted staff. They are not nostalgic about the aged; they are acts of exposure—showing how dignity is compromised, how care is mismanaged, and how the failures of a system surface in the residents’ everyday spaces.

The paintings take on the blurring of days and the atmosphere of suspension, drawing on fragments of memory and routine but twisting them into something disorienting. A bright, synthetic palette of blues, pinks, and yellows resists sentimentality. Instead of comfort, these colors expose disorientation and neglect, transforming familiar interiors into distressed sites of care.

 Since 2022, my mother has lived in a Canadian dementia ward, where I have witnessed these failures. People living with dementia are adults with complex personal histories. They deserve dignity and respect, and should not be infantilized. Dementia care deserves urgent public attention. It is not just about my mother—it is about all of us, and the kind of care every human being deserves in their most vulnerable moments.

 Through this series, I honor my mother’s resilience and hope to raise awareness and call for reform.