Artist Statement
I am a mixed media artist, using different materials and mediums to subvert systems and social norms. I often use found scenes or objects, taken anywhere from picking up garbage on the beach to sitting in traffic as inspiration. A lot of my projects (both works I make, and shows I curate) exist at the intersection of political wrongs and joyful aesthetics. I like to take things completely out of context and connect them with something you probably know, in order to draw in the viewer and get my points across. I like for the viewer to have a tiny clue of what they are looking at. My titles often feed information to my viewers, using graphics or typography and text, like Carrie Mae Weems, Barbara Kruger and Shepard Fairey. I love the idea of propaganda for good. Many of my projects are based in narrative, for example, Pain is Pain is an installation about the stigmatization of women in areas of mental health, pain management and health care, substance use and misuse. I used my own narcotic pharmacy leaflets printed on cotton twill to make bedding. To further envelop the viewer in the feelings of helplessness, fear, shame and anger, etc., yellow wallpaper is hung on the walls, blatantly bringing The Yellow Wallpaper, 1892, by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, a short story about the very same thing, as the background. Projects like this are important for our world today. We miss so much looking at our own special data feeds, looking down with headphones on going to work or where ever, not connecting with each other or our surroundings. I want to display images that can evoke emotion and unite us.