ARTIST STATEMENT

Throughout my life, the perception of others and my perception of myself became an undercurrent in my work. I have always been incredibly sensitive to the experiences and emotions of others in such intensity; I started to act as a storyteller for those around me, documenting the feelings I felt from others. Memories with loved ones and encounters with strangers all became part of a personal mythology, my mind becoming an archive of these connections. Parallel to this, I consider how my identity as a woman has positioned me to prioritize my empathetic tendencies for others over myself.  I am interested in how gendered experiences play into  social perception and interaction of others. My work attempts to make visible the quiet, often overlooked moments and translate these experiences into something that can be seen and felt. As I shift between my perception of events and reality, I attempt to intertwine both into immersive stories that allow others to encounter experiences that might be unlike their own.

In my practice I utilize photography, textiles, video, and multimedia installation. I am interested in developing intimate spaces and objects as invitations for self-reflection. My photography has often expanded past digital capture in print to unconventional surfaces such as fabrics and visual projection. I am driven by a desire to present the photograph as something that can be translated into physical touch or senses. I work with cyanotype exposure, allowing me to photograph objects in a way that has direct contact with its surface. Bringing the intangible into the physical, my large-scale installations are full of hidden details for my viewers to discover. Rooms become immersive interactive narratives in a 3D-dimensional space or to places where personal confessions are translated into rituals and performance. Through fictioning, I craft stage sets to develop personal memories into scenes that can be experienced by viewers. I utilize historical objects or mythologies to both recontextualize and resonate what they symbolize in human perception. Found objects become parts of a larger narrative, repurposed from their own personal histories and usage.

I have long employed portrait photography to document human experiences in my practice, turning to methods of environmental portraiture and self-portraiture. My works on fabric offer themselves as intimate sanctums; a reflection of lived experiences on transient materials. In my practice, I reference the historical feminine context of textiles to speak to my experiences and the greater experiences of others on myself and those around me. I engage with these conventions considered the traditional feminine and subject them to be in tension with a new meaning. Through the lens of the personal or shared experience, my practice considers the fleeting expressions of grief, joy and all pulses through our finite hearts.

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