welcome to Solar Plexus!

ABOUT ME

I’m 24 years old, born and raised in San Jose, California (with moves and housing to Long Beach, Huntington Beach, and Laguna Beach / SF speckled in between). fun fact: I was ALMOST a college dropout in my freshman year at Cal State Long Beach in pursuit of this passion for capturing visual art IN THE WAY I SEE THE WORLD.

from sheer boredom in school + the burning desire to travel the world and create, a kinetic concoction was created that’s now birthed this website & platform. I’m a daughter of first generation Vietnamese & Chinese American immigrants, and have my B.S. in Communication Studies, with foci in Conflict Resolution, Intercultural Communication, and Mediation: but the real love along the way came with the love of the spirit of this vision. Supported by the love of my dear friends & the ways I’ve cultivated growth from spiritual practice along the way, I’m here to redefine how photography feels, is embraced, experienced: and let’s face it - to diversify this visual art network & community.

Why am I a photographer?

For me, the camera is a mechanism, a means, to an infinite source. I have deeply rooted values surrounding the experience of one’s own essence: something that cannot be touched, only felt, and now, seen with the eyes. Photography is the bridge to the unseen, making what we feel inside visible to the rest of the world, our tangible eyeballs, able to accessed by the brains of others’ geniuses. In short — photography is beautiful, expands my mind and perceptions of beauty on the daily, and inspires me to awaken the creational beast within. If we can see the future inside, we can create it: with intention, and with the love, safety, and support that another’s sacred seeing can offer us. In this case — I saw a need for artistic creation to be cherished and valued timelessly, and also, who wants to be stiffly captured by strangers who we ultimately may never see again, or feel uncomfortable around — or be pushed into boxes, of photos that describe US as BEINGS?

As an artist (a drawer, painter, and cultivator of color in my own life through interior design and fashion), healer, and mystic, I’ve also found the most beautiful experience of reward and love came from touching and capturing this essence: photography as a medium for pure humanity to be seen, felt, and even heard. Photography for me is more than a medium of snapping and shooting, or pointing around speaking about specs: it’s a design, it’s a unique blueprint, of cultivation: capturing your unique color, your emotions, your feelings.

I know that in my life, being photographed and being asked to be my college best friend’s fashion photographer at 18 changed my life completely. I became uniquely attuned to using a piece of equipment, learning it, so I could bring to life what I see and feel in life — and at certain points, capturing that SHOT is the one that completely sparks and catalyzes a moment forever: how you see yourself, through the eyes of another, completely changes how you feel about yourself.

I feel so passionate and joyful about bringing others into this world, into this realm of seeing themselves as the divine may see them, celebrate them, and highlight them. In the essence of nonduality of this human experience, photography helps me capture humanity and peace in the eyes of so much possible external chaos: not just creating memories, but defining spaces and breaking invisible cages that keep our essences bound to just who we think we are on the outside.

Photography is a bridge: and it brings to life the rich and immense inner worlds of beautiful people and souls that walk this planet, among other living spaces and breathing beings, every. single. day.

After living in San Jose for the last two years and moving about five times within the last year all across California, I’m intending on cultivating artistic expression and stability through my art, and within this space. It’s a passion of mine, and a vehicle of transformation for not only me, but so, so many.

In a world that seems to whirl so quickly, it never ceases to boggle my mind what the meeting point of humanity; passion; intimacy, and intensity of moment, filled with potential and heat, can bring to life.

Can we slow down, and savor the moment? What if this moment, is all we have?

may we walk in peace ✨