My series of oil paintings titled bitter/sweet investigates how women navigate physical and emotional intimacy with both themselves and others. I began this year thinking about selfportraits, questioning how I define my identity and how other people see me. As I shifted to exploring experiences that many women can relate to, I continued thinking about those issues of identity. Women are the subjects of these paintings, although the presence of other people is suggested through the shadows and hands around the subjects. We cannot see the identity of the other figures interacting with the subjects, but the women can. The viewer occupies an outside perspective, seeing the women not as they see themselves, nor as the other figures see them, but from the outside to see how these women function in relationships.