Through the Filter: The Brewed Bond

This series of painted portraits, created on coffee filters with coffee, reflects the intertwined histories of the women in my family and life—each one a unique narrative, but all linked by shared strength, resilience, beauty, and a deep-rooted connection to daily rituals. The women I’ve chosen to depict are my mother, grandmother, aunts, cousins and friends—each a woman who has shaped the fabric of my identity and whose legacy has been steeped in the daily ritual of brewing and sharing coffee.

The coffee filter, traditionally a simple, often discarded object, is a metaphor for the way women’s stories are often overlooked or consumed in quiet spaces. Yet, like the coffee filter itself, these women have been a quiet but essential force in the creation of my life and art. Each filter becomes a canvas for their likenesses, capturing moments of their lives with delicate washes of coffee and detail that reflect the depth of their character and experience.

The connection between women and coffee is both symbolic and personal. Coffee, in my family, has always been a centerpiece—a conversation starter, a comfort, a connector. To this day, coffee is a quiet but constant companion, binding generations of women together, no matter the physical distance between us. By painting on coffee filters, I am not only paying homage to the women who shaped me but also to the daily acts that sustain us—acts that are often simple, humble, and invisible, but that, like coffee, brew the essence of connection, warmth, and life itself. Each portrait is an invitation to remember and to honor, a celebration of the women who made me who I am and who continue to inspire me, one cup at a time.