ARTIST STATEMENT
My work explores the contradictions
between the impulse to destroy and the compulsion to mend.
I juxtapose rapid acts of destruction, such as spilling and
cutting, with painstaking, restorative labor. Embroideries
are hand-stitched over stains and rips, contrasting the accidental
with the meticulous, constructing narrative from randomness
and mistake. The initial marks are found on linens or are
created by cutting and staining canvas. The work scrambles
expressions of aggression with masochistic patience and sublimation
and plays with the feminine through the graphic form of the
"stain" and the adding of peek-a-boo, lace inlays
to repair cut holes that expose the hidden space behind the
canvas. Shadows on the wall add a sculptural dimension and
some pieces are hung off the wall to reveal the secret and
unintended marks of the verso.
Shredded
paper sculptures, such as the Tax Files, reconfigure
a mass of paper that has been grouped and saved due to written
content, into slabs reminiscent of tree cross-sections where
the climate of a given year, and the tree's overall age are
visible in a single slice. Historical information is revealed
in the colors of deposit slips, pay stubs, receipts and tax
forms. The cellular coils spiral outward, mimicking biological
growth, as they are glued together into flat rounds, which
suggest lichen, doilies or disease. The re-use of paper, as
well as the attempted "repair" of the long-lost
original tree, is an examination of feelings of despair about
waste and unsustainability while simultaneously responding
to the shadow impulse to hoard and keep what is no longer
needed. The exercise of translating numbers back into a comprehensible,
physical manifestation is also an attempt to develop a tool
for managing overwhelmingly large tallies, such as those we
encounter regularly in reports on war or climate change.
Other
sculptural works, such as [a cast of my left hand in the
shape of a] Glove, use thread to cast the form of my
left hand through the efforts of the free hand. The pieces
play with the obstacle of sewing with literally, "one
hand tied" and allow improvisational stitching and the
results of awkwardness and inconvenience to cast the body
part. The finished pieces are struggling and imperfect versions
of traditionally hyper-perfect Victorian lace gloves. The
pieces maintain the delicate, yet clumsy shapes of ghost hands,
at once appearing as flawed and decaying relics, while in
fact being molded from the physical hand, a method normally
used to create a more substantial and permanent copy than
the original flesh.
