Archive Retrospective

Through conversation with others and the formation of this archive, I gained a lot of clarity on my practice. In my work I deal often with dichotomies such as beauty and the grotesque, industrial and natural, life and death, etc, to explore how the body and self exists in and is affected by those spaces and make comparisons. I consistently prioritize texture and some element of abstraction in my work. I often reference photographs while working but I rarely depict exactly what I see, I prefer to twist and manipulate and exaggerate the forms, weaving them into a larger composition. Similarly, I rarely stick to one single medium in making work, which made that category of this archive a little tricky, but it was important to me that my drawings, prints, paintings and sculptures be looked at separately. The addition of the projects section was chosen to represent specific works which I don't see fitting into the other categories as well because the pieces there are meant to be shown together, the approaches were too different to be anywhere else. The way I approach making work within each category is different and process is a very important part of my practice. I make work primarily for the love of making, working with material and manipulating shapes.

For this archive, I've chosen to represent works which are most relevant to my practice as it exists now and where I see it moving in the future, but I have included my sketchbook from 2017-2018 in this archive to compare how I worked then to how I work now. Personally, I think I have improved a lot in how I plan out my pieces and my content is more sophisticated than before. What has stayed consistent is my use of a variety of materials, textures, shapes and forms and in the process of making work I take lots of notes as seen in the sketchbook. I was still obsessed with body and technology and the organic versus the inorganic, which is a topic I'm specifically engaging in right now.

Notes on Style:

My style is focused on the blending of textures, materials, and forms-implied and literal. The layering of materials and forms and color. My style is representational but not exactly so, my artwork is also an exaggeration and the form is almost always manipulated in some way. The subjects/forms are almost always organic and almost always out of context, sometimes outside of any context with empty backgrounds and isolated forms. The work is mostly rendered in warm colors. Often the work is focused on juxtapositions, pairings and comparisons. The work is complex to a point of being overwhelming in some ways (composition/accumulation.) The style focuses on an appreciation of the grotesque in the pairing of tight details with unsavory implications such as gore or decay/rot. There is often an element of dimension. On a second glance the work becomes more aggressive.

Additional Notes/Thoughts on Subject Moving Forward:

In my work, I find balance between disgust and fascination, the beautiful and grotesque. (Horror vs the sublime/the abject.) In my recent work, I’ve been breaking down the self into strictly bodily terms by depicting organs/viscera as a means of grounding the self, helped by the physicality of the pieces I create (texture/dimension) (and the inherent physical nature of the body) which works in contrast to modern living/our current context where we deal more with the digital and intangible. 

We see viscera and recognize “body” in a different way from how we do when we see someone else’s body, this could be our body. That’s one of the reasons I’ve been drawn to that subject. There is a universality in what makes up our body, rather than the appearance of the outside. I believe seeing that grounds us in the physicality of the body, where the physical is “real” or concrete. Digital/intangible as unreal, limitless, overwhelming. You can’t touch it, feel it physically/ reason with it…)

(Also, in consideration of mind-body dualism, consider the mind as intangible/harder to grasp, but rooted in the physical (brain) regardless, as technology—the internet—is respectively rooted in its parts.In my current work I am crossing/blurring those lines.)

^intangibility of tech. aspects in the flatness of the technology we interact with. (smooth, flat screens and keyboards, the flatness of the projected (internet))

I see my work focusing on/meditating over our connection to the physical aspects of the mind/self and the technology we are now so linked to. (Technology as life-saving and essential to how we function socially now more than ever.) I want to consider how we are being affected overtime by this adaptation. Physically, mentally, socially. Are we adjusting to accommodate this change? Are we coping well? (Are we growing around the foreign influence as a tree does around a foreign object?)

Another thing I’m thinking about is body in relation to the self, itself, the environment (by large) and its environment (near surroundings, tech in this case.) Are we reaching a point where these tools become a part of/extension of the body and/or self? (How our brain regards tools (physical) as extensions of the body, limb, etc.)

I am considering our relationship physically/bodily with these intangible environments, how they change and influence the self, our understanding of our bodies and minds. Where do we begin “feeling” these intangible things. (phantom limb?) Are these tools extensions of our body/mind. (abstract sensation^of intangible forces?)

>Also thinking about how we ourselves change and adapt to our synthetic environments. (What could this be doing to mental health? Physical health?)

Caution/fascination and warning/celebration. It is human ingenuity, it does help us further our lifespans and achieve amazing things. But there is something to be feared, here, too. Something to watch and pay attention to.

Recent works and upcoming include body encompassing/growing around tech/industry. (See “Selected Works.”)