Artist Statement
I have created my work in order to unravel my sense of the world and challenge the narratives and beliefs I hold as truths. In my work, I struggle to uncover memories of specific childhood experiences in detail that can then be reimagined so that I can retell the story to myself. By recreating/reconstructing my earliest memories, I hope to revisit the way I once viewed the world from a place of innocence and wonder and bring that childlike perspective into my life as an adult. For my exhibition, I am exploring the theme of the private and invisible aspects of memory by making bathroom forms that are specific to my childhood.
My process of creating involves iterating the same forms in different media, and using the medium to understand the object in a new way. I often use highly modifiable and unconventional materials in order to capture the dystopian aspects of memory. Chewed bubble gum, thick goopy epoxy, encaustic beeswax, paper pulp, yarn, porous cracked spackle, and threads form the surfaces of the tub, pipes, and figure. I wanted to reimagine the pipes that are not seen in a bathroom and bring them to the surface, but in an unrealistic, imperfect, and nonfunctional way.
I work to overcome the assumption that in order to heal something has to be completely resolved within the self. Instead, I offer that healing is an undescribed area, that is unmeasurable, and it is forever evolving and never finished. I believe that healing is an ongoing process, never fully attained. This is replicated in the- imperfect nature of the objects I make. I am not interested in chasing after a memory and seeking its validity or truth as a representation of what actually happened. I am however interested in embracing the uncertainty of an object and the memory tied to it.