In my composite Portraits series, I attempt to encapsulate a subject's life's arc in a single object. We Go High pictures former First Lady Michelle Obama at her high school graduation in 1981 and at the Democratic National Convention in 2016. One can see the determination and confidence in the young Michelle's eyes, while the older Michelle has become a mature, confident and extremely popular public figure. Filling out the painting is an abstract panel, meant to represent the more private part of a biography or perhaps the spaces between the photographable moments of life. A corner rainbow in the upper left symbolizes the hopes that the Obama era embodied for many Americans, while keeping the composition moving in a circular manner, calling to mind the cycle of life.