Abstract: The paintings that make up Illusions of Separateness capture an embodied experience of realizing the illusion of independence between the subject and the other. The paintings borrow imagery from Huichol bead paintings and Tibetan Thangka paintings to place this experience in the context of Indigenous American and Buddhist phenomenology: both of which center around a lived understanding of profound connectedness among all things. Moving through various levels of abstraction, the paintings reveal the relationships between colors, shapes, and lines that work together to create the appearance of form. The progression mimics how an understanding of this profound connectedness can shift human’s experience of the world around us. Possessing this awareness reveals the relationships that all things are dependent upon, demonstrating that they cannot exist independently of one another.