WORDS
When you read the following please be assured I have not lost my mind. Instead understand that I have always been interested in the freedom that art allows, in its objects, and as a place to change how one understands the lived experience.
​
How does one use these rather functional, prescribed words to describe what it means to make art? To, in some small way, describe the way in which the mind works, or sees, or hears, and how this impossibility of describing and transcribing the infinity of life and imagination, which, trapped here in the folds of history and the future and the impossibility of space/universe/mind/god/nothing/, even color, color!!!, try in some way to describe what it means to create objects, art, and then tell you what those objects are and or what they mean. How wonderful that you could read these words and almost understand some semblance of the utter confusion that I feel in attempting to understand this world and my culture, where I am supposed to be rational, good, stay skinny, get rich, be friendly, stay in shape, eat well, be healthy, be creative, influence people, get famous, be happy, be happy, be happy, fit in, and yet create objects that capture the vastness of imagination, and that also express my own fear and doubt and happiness and wonder and confusion as to what it means to exist and have the freedom and power to shape materials, to touch, wonder, love, be confused, and want to cry/laugh/breath - chaos, change, c c c c c c c c, letters, shapes on the page. Below are the words I am expected to write, how beautiful to have the choice.
​
My artistic enthusiasm arises from curiosity and an interest to explore conceptual notions, media and technical processes. The limitless bounds, possibilities, and formlessness of artistic practice provide a groundwork for investigating my understandings and interests in the world.
​
Inspired by Plato’s Allegory of the Cave my most recent research utilizes mixed-media techniques to explore notions of perception. These objects explore the shifting perceptions necessitated through daily interactions between analog and digital experiences. Through varying iterations of forms the limitations of objects and their creation is deconstructed and reassembled. In this space there is no original, instead the boundary between what is real and simulated is overcome through continuous interpretations, and the unbounded possibilities of artistic practice, a space between perceptual expectation and the unknown is created.
I often use clay due to my familiarity with it materially, and as it provides an excellent platform of creation due to its vast potentiality. Specifically, I am drawn to its malleability and its ability to capture the haptic experience that acts upon it. Historically, through its longevity, ceramic materials archived cultural ideas, which presents a rich conceptual groundwork as it records those occurrences. This contrasting quality, of being both ephemeral and permanent, provides interest, both materially and conceptually.
In short, I see myself as a maker. There is satisfaction in being able to control and alter materials, to produce those things that can be helpful, or make the world a more interesting place. My hope is that the work raises questions, creating some sense of wonder in the viewer, a wondering of what is, and what could be.