Pokeberries are a perennial herb that grows around forest edges. These berries are a contradiction, both toxic but also medicinal when consumed in certain doses. I have always been drawn to their rich purple and pink hue, and as a child I remember being entranced by their color as I crushed them between my fingers in my backyard. While on a walk over the Fall I chose to collect some to use as a dye for a body of work based on my relationship to intimacy. I feel a deep tension between a desire to be touched and a fear of vulnerability, which led me to creating work exhibiting overlapping and repeating hands and forms with the medium of Pokeberry juice. This work is meant to be chaotic with moments of respite, unraveling complicated experience and emotion in their conception