My work is driven by personal experiences and their connections to contemporary and historical issues. The complexities and intricacies of labor, care, and identity in contemporary and past culture are consistent undercurrents in all aspects of the work which include layered, labor-intensive drawings, collage, sculpture, performance, et al, often transform into fully realized mixed media works and immersive installations. I seek to make challenging experiences accessible to those without the same somatic knowledge while still engaging in conversation and confrontation. The viewer is met with bodily experiences that mirror the complexities of the stories I share, with a focus on shared knowledge, awareness, empathy, and change.
Since 2018, I have been engaged in an ongoing body of work I call Tired Bodies, which incorporate abstracted figures and soft sculpture in a variety of scales, ranging from handheld to monumental. These sculptures relay the realities of their experiences via the methods of their construction and built environments which incorporate several other mediums including but not limited to woodworking, found objects, ceramics, and painting. Tired Bodies act as vehicles for interaction, understanding, and empathy, connecting others to bodily experiences of labor and care while navigating the complexities of identity. Each Tired Body possesses a story that might touch on topics of gendered expectation and norms, sexuality, body image, ableism, community, motherhood, and more and these stories contribute to the creation of each soft sculpture and the installations they inhabit. Throughout my work, stories are collected in a variety of methods, from direct sources to literature and research, all of which inform the sculptures.
Additional studio work and research can be divided in two ways:
1. Focus on the daily lived experiences of women; their triumphs, their struggles, and everything in between in several bodies of work which reflects on the complicated spaces, both personal and public, that women inhabit and move through.
2. Exploration of the complexities of identity where family history, cultural and social influence, politicization, and personal desire are both at odds and overlapping. In this exploration identity becomes a fact-based excavation of personal history alongside a kind of fictional mythological world building.