Artist Statement
I know I get a little too personal sometimes. But I can’t imagine making anything without being real about my life. Everything I create mediates how I understand the world. I am interested in— or rather, responsible for— the unseen processes of production. So that includes the experiences that have led me here. My work takes place at the intersections of globalization I have inhabited throughout my life, but also in non-space and non-time. With my tendency to dissociate, everywhere has the potential for liminality. I try to resist the scary parts of defamiliarization through worldmaking, body modification, and dreaming up ways to take agency.
I have always loved artifice and how it blurs the lines between organic and man-made. There’s something irreplaceable about made-up things like blue raspberry flavored candy. I think it’s interesting that for a variety of motivations, we find the need to make things up, and I’m (almost) always glad anyone took the time to try something new. I like approximations of approximations and interpretations of interpretations. In both my daily life and my art practice, I map the ways we transform what is “natural” and wonder if the very act of transformation is natural in itself.
I don’t want to romanticize being so mentally ill, but it’s a crucial part of how I navigate the world. But I’m scared of people misunderstanding what that means: I’d rather people not enjoy my work at all than like it because they pity the experiences I ground my work in without understanding the larger ideas I’m getting at. Creating in the context of depression ensures I don’t take the desire to live for granted. Things never have to be how they have “always” been or how they are now.
