Artist Statement
My artwork presents shifted likenesses of structural objects, examining the distinctions between what it means "to make" and "to build". Making often implies a lowered level of seriousness, functionality, or necessity in the produced item, while building is utilitarian and purposeful, yielding something greater than the sum of its parts. Borrowing from the languages of both making and building, my work prods at the traditionally gendered connotations of these distinct modes of production and their assumed inherent value (whether monetary, cultural, or social). The boundaries between making and building are both ignored and complicated by the falsity of the items I create.
I make dimensional images of access (manhole) covers with suede and velvet. I build bricks from tiny stitches of colored thread. Both pulling from and complicating the art historical use of the tromp l'oeil method, the objects I create are false expansions of images. They are actually physically dimensional, but their visual qualities are derived from only a single linear perspective. The object-ness is simplified, constrained by the item's surface, to the site where the labor of production occurred, and by the limitations of object's image. Their hardness is not fully true. The image/object relationships within my artwork trick the viewer to assume an understanding of the shape of the object in one moment, and then the truth of the shape dissolves with a slight shift in perspective.
My practice spans printmaking, sculpture, and fiber arts with a dedicated attention to materiality and surface as the site of visual and conceptual revelation. My subject matter, material choices, and dedication to tedious working processes expose the tension between the industrial and the individual and address conceptions of certainty, familiarity, stability, and labor.
