Current Work:
Every human must inhabit a body, it is a truth that connects all of us. Our bodies are in a constant state of change. Every human must live with the delicacy and mystery of the biological systems that both allow us life and cause our mortality. Our bodies are also inexorably linked to our minds and identities. A visual representation of dysfunction in the body is symbolic of emotional and societal disturbance. In my artistic practice I often deal with issues of anxiety, anger, and wonder manifested through bodily imagery.
I’m in a constant state of material exploration, which helps to generate or inform many of my ideas. I’m interested materially in the marriage of the detritus of everyday life and traditional materials such as paint, plaster, clay, paper mâché and resin. My work often includes found objects from the trash or roadside, casts and hardware. The things we manufacture, use, and throw away have a life cycle like our own and I feel I can best speak to the nature of humanity by reimagining the discarded materials created by it.
I strive to create art that is simultaneously beautiful and nasty, seductive and threatening, precious and dirty. My work is an earnest exploration of a mortal existence in which the body is both celebrated and condemned.
Doubling Series:
In devoted relationships we compromise parts of ourselves to exist harmoniously with another. Every intimate relationship is a balance and often a struggle of “me” and “we.” We must define ourselves within the context of first familial and eventually romantic relationships, and when these relationships become unhealthy so do the boundaries of selfhood. Anxieties within oneself that are reciprocated by another can become codependencies. I used to wish that I could be a part of my mother’s body so that I would never be without her. I’m interested in exploring the psychological implications of this need for attachment in the physical manifestation of shared and conjoined bodies. The body each of us inhabits so intimately is often seen as a seat for identity and sense of self. What happens when we share our bodies with another?
Conversely, the simple physical definition of existing in two bodies does not necessarily indicate two separate selves. In my work, the mirroring of figures challenges the notion of a unitary self and what is real and unreal, what is you and what is me. Facing each other, my figures confront themselves and see the other as a reflection of self. We connect with others by finding similarities between us. Then the Other becomes the narcissistic construction of ourselves in a reflected image. However, the way that we see others is not the way they see themselves. And no matter how close two people are they will never completely know the thoughts of the other with certainty, as our own thoughts are often multilayered and sometimes unknowable. Here, then, lies the space between people physically and emotionally. What does this space look like?