BLUE MAN

i have person-color synesthesia: i see and feel people in color. it's not a metaphor; it's simply how perception has always worked for me.

one color keeps showing up in my life more than any other: blue. the men i fall for are always blue: magnetic, exciting, the kind of presence that fills a room before they've said a word.

this painting is part of a larger series exploring that pattern. blue men make me feel alive, chosen, seen. and then, eventually, they make me feel exactly the opposite; small, and invisible in the very light they once gave me.

"blue man" is both a portrait and a confession: an attempt to understand a type i keep returning to, even when i know how the story usually ends.