Statement

My work blends fragments of worthy but unwanted things into configurations and vibrant micro-environments that connect to histories, memories, and our competing desires to protect ourselves and connect to one another.

Most of my materials come from curbside piles in my neighborhood or from bags of random items friends give me when decluttering. I use labor intensive processes to break down and reshape these familiar objects into raw materials. This process takes countless hours of focused attention, during which I reflect on the stories behind these items—who created or owned them, what they’ve witnessed, and what circumstances led to their abandonment

I modify potentially sentimental things like holiday decorations, stuffed animals, handmade afghans, and old sweaters and mix them with accumulations of banal and functional things like toothpicks, buttons, sponges, and window screens. These objects are widely recognizable, but hold varying degrees of nostalgic attachment dependent on lived experience- highlighting both the commonalities, differences, and interconnectivity in our lives. Many pieces feature densely tangled, disorienting layers of material-- synthetic, organic, reflective, precious, disposable, sharp, soft, slick, and delicate surfaces–swirled into chaotic yet structured compositions that reflect fraught attempts to understand relationships between innate emotional and physical needs and external materialistic gestures or tastes.

In some pieces, arrangements of familiar objects are bound or constrained, yet spill forth in unexpected ways, with tendrils of new growth emerging. I also create whimsical clusters of consumer debris and scraps of old sweaters or blankets, evoking macroscopic views of airborne particulates, microbes, or perhaps, subliminal ideas we have inherited or internalized. Occasionally, the sculptures incorporate domestic furniture into makeshift architectural forms resembling watchtowers, altars, and DIY shrines that respond to underlying power structures, within the home and our culture.