Artist Statements
I create geometric compositions of colors organized by pattern, form and space. Compositions are found through play where forms are linearly reactive. I create work out of identity as purpose, compulsion and therapy. Working through my personal history & life experiences. searching for understanding of human interactions. Seeking to evoke peace, joy, the ability to be oneself and a desire to play through creating. Prioritizing a slow life, where rest is needed. My work explores color relationships. Searching for my place in the world, home, for belonging in a nomadic life.
I have found comfort through the escapism of video games and the safety of these digital worlds. Through the pandemic my practice evolved from ceramic compositions exploring human relationships to animal crossing new horizons designed digital paintings that I made manifest tangibly as quilts. Exploring recreating the same visual information in multiple mediums and processes where the information is consistent but the colors, material and scale changes, I relate this practice to language translation. Reductive woodcut designs start out as drawings in a sketchbook as an archive of documented visual ideas. I'm drawn to organization where the order of the grid creates a template for translation, and usage of repetition, mirroring and pivoting in forms.
Color relationships, perception, balance
Isolation, individual, outside/separate/not belonging, create world/retreat
blanket/futon, comfort, peace, protection
positive/negative, shadow, light, altered enough to change interpretation
Quilt, ancestry, craft, labor/time, significance/attachment/valuing system
Translation, 2D/3D, discovery/play, mediums alter/influence
Pattern, repeat/mirror/pivot
Geometric, shape, form, fit, fill space
Methodical, systematic, process, act, present
Bend Flip Pivot
Ideas, thoughts, innate, imagine
Visual, stream of consciousness
Draw, translate, inform, line
Symmetry, repetition, mirror, pivot
Structure, transparency, space
Create, belong, environment, comfort
Play, discover, insight, evolve
Relationships, interact, respond
Connections, detachments, individual, community, culture
Document, archive, record, organize, collect
Research, refine
Identity, diversity, experience, compelled
Color, palette, pattern, semantics
Artifact, symbol, language, shape, form
I am interested in visual thoughts and the documentation of these thoughts through stream of consciousness drawing. My sketchbooks serve as a cataloguing system for me to retain these images and refer to them in the creation of my work.
I use coils as a translation of the lines I use within my two-dimensional work. The coils become tangible sculptures that can also be thought of as two-dimensional drawing. I see this approach as being similar to the artist Ruth Asawa and how she used wired line to create her sculptures.
I am intrigued by translation and think of my practice of moving between two-dimensional and three-dimensional working in the same way as translation between languages. Moving between two-dimensional and three-dimensional allows room for discovery.
I am aesthetically drawn to repetition and symmetry. Coil forms start out flat; sides are then mirrored, pivoted and multiplied. I am drawn to curving line which causes my coil forms to reference the sphere or circle.
I am interested in human relationships. My coil forms create space inside the coils outlining and encasing the air. In that way, they are transparent and suggest the human characteristic of transparency. Using coils allows the forms to be positioned more intimately with each other within a composition.
In my paintings forms also exist in flat planes, functioning in the usage of color, how much of each color is seen and the proximity of colors to each other to create a reaction to the plane of color. I use a color wheel to aid in my color choices in creating a balance of colors.
I am interested in the struggle of communication. I use limited color palettes to glaze my works in a repetition of stripes. We each have associations and connotations we place with words and colors. I use different collections of colors to convey the idea of semantics. This also allows for a greater diversity of color among forms placed in the same composition and visual complexity created by the camouflaging of forms.
I am interested in the individual and how we possess unique identities and personalities. I create a diversity of forms reflecting the diversity of each human and how we understand our own identity through abstraction.
Jessica stockholder describes play as “a type of learning and thinking that doesn’t have a predetermined end.” I am interested in the discovery that happens when I play with the forms I have created, discovering compositions. The interactions between the forms mirror human interactions and relationships. My two dimensional works are a moment in time of these interactions but with the three dimensional forms, they can be moved; their positions are not permanent.
BFA Thesis Exhibition
Ideas, thoughts, innate, imagine
Visual, stream of consciousness
Play, discover, evolve, nonverbal
Continual, perpetuation, research, refine
Collaboration, coalescence, combination, dialogue, composition
Relationships, interactions, responding, reacting
Connections, detachments, individual, community
Document, archive, record, organize, collect
Symmetry, repetition, pivot, mirror
Structure, transparency, whole resting on broken
Identity, experience, truth, compelled, peace
Color, childhood, childlike, freedom
Artifact, symbol, language, shape and form
Daisy
Thoughts that manifest visually not verbally, collage of thoughts
Cultural references, bilingual
Colors and forms, my language
Identity, memories, distilled through my experience of existence filtered through my present, me
Organized, Individuals working together to create a whole
Separate, individuality
Path Cup
Peace, comfort, calming, still, morning light, nature
Sustainable, enduring, real objects, real materials, sturdy, everyday use
Slow life Aesthetic, handmade heirloom, intentionally and purposefully made
Drinking, community, friends
Quality of life
Thoughts that manifest visually not verbally, colors and forms, collage of thoughts
Explorations, refining skill, necessary skill, practical, future
Repetition, steps, process, silencing, focusing thought to the present moment of creation
Organized, clean
The foot is important
Opaque colors from my lifetime 1985-2018
functional
Flat, designs
Angled grooved, stripes
Hand sized
Rounded bottom hovering
Dessert Series
où je vivais là-bas, slow life, desert, disease, nature, rest
Symmetry, contained space, repetition, multiples, pivoting
Resting on rocky terrain, whole resting on broken
color combinations, early 1990’s Japanese animation films
Formal elements and ideas are before and also present in creating, conscious, first, intentional
Thoughts and revelations come after creating, discovered, self-discovery
Played with in composition, intuition, but exist alone
Artifacts, documentation, nonverbal communication, form
If I could do anything with my work I would hike into the desert and leave my piece there. Alone in the light and beauty, surrounded by the dust and earth and plants. I would collect samples of the plants I came into contact with. I would carry my piece with me into the desert, I would know where it needed to be placed when I arrived there, I would place it carefully on the ground. The piece would be remembered by me only. Never seen by others it would rest, still. The piece would exist separate from any society or civilization that exists somewhere else, separate. It would exist apart from the normal art object life in a gallery, home or museum. It would never know that life. It would never know the normal course of events. It would exist apart. It would take in the heat of the sun and the cool of the shade and night. It would exist under the illumination of the moon and stars and know well the rustling of desert brush and the buzzing of insects. It would be related to this environment being made from clay but unlike anything around it because it was formed, altered. Placed carefully, respectfully and left. My pieces each individually reflect me, existing, separate, behind, apart, alone, and longing to be outside.
Bioluminescence, Mitosis
Interacting, relationships, connections, detachment
Engage, conversation, dialogue, language
Touch, hold, over, under, balance
Curving, bending, moving, playing
Kaleidoscope, pivot, evolution, mitosis
Repetition, multiplying
Thought, innate, imagine
See, discover, conscious, documentation, interpretation
Refine, research, daily diligence, productivity
World, tribe, symbol, form, structure
Individual, community, collection
Pocket Things
forms, shapes, lines, suggested space and surface
movement, flowing, dripping, waving, bending, curling, rolling, twisting
unique, individual
together, relationships and interactions, responding, reacting, space
connectivity and disconnectedness
Chainmail
Common ground, identity sharing
Breath, blood, emotions
Connected
Mortal coil
Physical, spiritual
Connected
Interactions, moments, time, memories, experiences
Influenced, affected
Accumulation
Personality, Identity
Connected
Exploration, Movement, Kinetic
Interaction, performance
Process, methodical, systematic, routine, mathematic
Repetition, refine, create
Connections