NEW SCULPTURAL WORKS

Depicting organic tissue with industrial materials is fascinating and has allowed me to put the tenuous health of the body and what we cannot see firsthand at the center of my work, and this enables me to reflect on climate change, ecology, mystery, species conservation, and extinction. I make impressions of living things, their struggle, their fragility. The Symbiocene–the interconnectivity of all earth’s life–is at the forefront of my mind. 

The manufactured and evolved worlds exist together in my work. Using industrial materials and byproducts, including plaster, copper, urethane resin, silicone, and foam, I make lifelike, human-scale sculptures that possess an otherworldly quality. They appear as surreal beings that have grown for the purpose of protecting and safeguarding fragile species for observation and care. At first, these human-scaled sculptures may appear to be organisms. Upon a closer look, they may also seem like devices which rescue and shelter vulnerable animals. Viewing holes and mirrors allow visitors to peer into their interiors and see the smaller silicone animals sculptures in varying states of vigor or decay. Perhaps this is a glimpse of some sort of unusual evolution. In this way, I invite viewers to contemplate the health of life on earth.

PREVIOUS WORK (2020 and prior)

The sculpture and installations I make exist at the intersection of medicine and nature. My practice took this focus when I witnessed something few people see–family members undergoing repeated surgical procedures. Day after day, I saw the fragility of the human body and observed the healing process and the physical apparatus it requires. As nurses applied bandages and placed tubes I began, through similar repetitive processes, to make objects–birds and nests–from the trash that healing procedures generated. The juxtaposition of organic forms and synthetic materials became alluring. I was drawn into the world of the hospital, and this became the basis of my inquiry.

My work implies a series of contradictions. These include nature and the artificial world that sustains us, resilience of the body and the advanced medical technology we have come to rely on, fear and sweetness, strength and vulnerability, and waste and environmental awareness.