Series Overview
Resurrected Memories of Home (Series): Resurrected from my past, this series of work was originally created during a time of darkness, a time when I didn’t know what hope was nor how much I needed it. I was a young artist searching for myself and my place in the world. There was nothing terribly wrong with the pieces as they were, but something about them felt flat, incomplete. As I work through my past - this part of me that, out of fear, I’ve too quickly forgotten - I resurrect memories that I have realized aren’t in fact all that scary, and I give them new life.
Homage to the Bones I - III: I combine chemical and natural materials because they interact with one another in unexpected and often drastic ways. They fight one another, break each other down, change each other. The evidence of the change--of the struggle--is what’s beautiful. In the struggle, patterns, textures and colors emerge that I can’t create from my own mind. They have to show up naturally, revealing themselves while I work. They remind me that not everything is within my control, that sometimes my world is going to spin out into a chaotic mess. It’s my job to learn to make something beautiful of that mess, and to live peacefully within it.
What do you do when all that’s left is the bones?
Take Care of The Bones.
Homage to the Bones (series). Disassembled polaroids, wax. 2014
Homage to the Bones
This series was originally intended as a way to preserve memories of old friends and family. I had carried these polaroids with me around the world for years, and the wear of the travel was beginning to affect their lifespan. My desire was to cover them with a firm, silky wax coating, but the reaction of the polaroid chemicals to the heat quickly transformed them from images of people I’ve loved into brittle, bonelike sheets of abstracted relationships.
Burn Down the House (detail). 2014. Mixed media on watercolor board.
Burn Down the House.
From the series “Resurrected Memories of Home”.
One Piece of Our Broken Vessel (series). Photo transfer on canvas. 2010.
One Piece of Our Broken Vessel
From the collaborative exhibition, The Urbanity Project, this piece visually interprets a series of poems exploring the everyday brothels in Shanghai, China.