The joy I find as an artist stems from the transformation of the base, or castoff, into the energetic sublime. Elements in my work range from the suspicious: household plastics, found papers, studio debris; to the traditional: fine canvas, fibers, and pigments; to the latest digital tools.
Ever inundated with imagery and cross-references in the fast-paced world that I inhabit, I often turn to a traditional, disciplined process such as weaving, and adapt it to my situational needs. Practicing a hybrid of focused process and alchemy, I use the pull of disparate elements to explore layered narratives within invented environments.
Recent work explores collaged images of children and their iconic props, appropriated from retro-Americana wallpaper and gift-wrap discovered in basements and urban garage sales. Flatland icon intersects with the deeply personal, as anonymous paper detritus mingles with images pulled from surface designs lining the safe walls and gift-boxes of my own infancy.
These characters and props are removed from their candy-colored, flattened worlds, and re-introduced into a variety of imaginary, uneasy environments infused with danger. Or do the characters themselves represent the danger? Through repetition and substitution, this work plays off of our universally recalled sense of childlike wonder combined with a tongue-in-cheek veneer of violence.
