Her work aims to raise consciousness, by asking questions like; whom does she choose to be in this world, and what is her purpose? 
Athena creates empowering portraits that speak of this authenticity. She does this by getting to know the sitters' lives and their powerful life intentions and does her best to translate that through a photo first and then a painted portrait. 
Her work is also inspired by the book "Letting Go - The Pathway of Surrender" by David R. Hawkins which talks about mindfulness and provides effective tools to let go of lower grade emotions that do not serve you. She creates paintings that are expressions of different grades of emotions based on a personal viewpoint and the current cultural take on it. 
The paintings are also character depictions of friends and images drawn from things that make them feel free and their ideal style of living. The collage of imagery symbolises this constant pull and push of the everyday and the ideal. The painting, "Free", which fear is fed daily through the news and is juxtaposed against her friend Dan's ideal way of living: off the grid and in nature. It is also layered with how she personally chose to see fear - as merely "Future Events Appearing Real".