In the summer of 2019, while working at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, I had the chance to see Hyman Bloom: Matters of Life and Death, just before starting an intensive graduate painting course. Bloom’s work left a profound impression on me—his visceral depictions of cadavers, butchered animals, and fish bodied “seascapes” blurred the boundaries between life and decay, presence and absence. That impact is evident in my series, Gutted Portraits, where I invite the viewer to confront the disomfort of looking—examing mortality, the fragility of flesh, and the unexpected beauty that can exist within decay. Through these works, I challenge the idea that death is purely absence, asking instead whether stillness itself can hold a kind of presence.