My contemporary work often merges social, psychological, and/or political observations. I like to use unusual, often recycled, materials in addition to traditional paint or plaster. My work is generally minimal in appearance. The felt experience comes before the artwork. Then a visual comes to mind, and translates from inside to a physical object. My work is in constant flux with my emotions and internal state— factors that are out of my control. The artwork comes before I have the language.
By concealing and tangling the visual language, there is a secretness—it forces me and the viewer to look for layers of meaning; we are left to untangle a meaning, or not. It isn’t essential because my goal is to find grace in some of unusual materials, and to make art that is beautiful. My hope is that we look deeper, beneath the beauty lies the message which is often not so pretty.
Some people think or expect that you should make the same kinds of art forever because it creates a convenient narrative. I want my work to embody my inherent contradictions. I generally work in series, giving myself a theme or a central idea from which to begin. I work in many different mediums, depending on how I envision the works.
“The sheer bigness of the world makes me feel lonely to the bone. The world is so huge that people are always getting lost in it. There are too many ideas and things and people, too many directions to go. I believe that the reason it matters to care passionately about something is that it whittles the world down to a more manageable size.” (quote from The Orchid Thief)