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Statement
My work examines how everyday objects and images construct collective identities that form the structure of our culture. I look for objects that are so visually present on the surface of our society, that they almost reach the point of disappearing. Through material transformation, I reassign their value and visibility through unexpected and overlapping signifiers. Coaxing materials and forms to act as venn diagrams, I make entirely new images by combining elements of one thing with elements of other things that still bear trace of their origins and respective auras.
In our materially saturated culture we are exposed to an endless feed of products and images. I look to pop culture, corporate branding, and my own personal autobiography to find meaning in objects that are iconic, yet verge on inevitable obsolescence. Socially, these objects reveal an alarming rate of production and consumption, and I make work that responds to these political relationships. I choose signifiers that represent actual economies built around their reality, but feed on the connotations of their second order signification. These connotations are the cultural fabric of identity.
I believe in the power of the dimensional aspects of sculpture to reveal information slowly. My sculptures play with archival and ephemeral facades, creating unstable and ambiguous ideas that leave room for the viewer to pull apart, or relish in their absurdity and excess. I rely on learning many crafts and technologies to imbue my work with nuanced evidence of my personal values. I aim to create a context where new questions are asked of the viewer. Extending from these ideas, my video works are portals that show a temporal relationship between action and material. Carefully framing these contexts, I seek to activate the objects I make, often using my own body. Both the dimensional and temporal aspects of my work create shifting images that slip in and out of collective visual knowledge. I combine these aspects with my idiosyncratic affinities that both affirm and subvert the everydayness of their encounter.