ARTIST STATEMENT
Art and loss are inextricably connected. I aspire to find universality within the personal, and intrinsically, one of the most private yet ubiquitous experiences is loss. Loss, exteriorized as death, weaved throughout my childhood into adolescence. The contradictory nature of loss, being both instantaneous and infinite, fascinates me; one moment or act that is fleeting, may cause indelible imprints. From this vantage point, the work focuses on facets analogous to religion, childhood, relationships, and awareness. Dualities arise— nostalgia and regret, engagement and disengagement, imagination and fabrication. Concept drives construction within my practice, though often viewed through the lens of movement, whether animated or kinetic.
My interdisciplinary approach integrates animation, three-dimensional simulations and printing, analog film techniques, kinetic sculpture, microscopy, light, and installations, dependent on the subject and notions of a particular work. For the past three years, collaboration has become an integral part of my process. I appreciate the binaries and singularities that are threaded throughout our interactions and unfolding process. Working with film artist, Adam Savje, we were struck by the potential for experimental abstract films to be used in the decoding of human interactions. Our developing series, Intimacies of Geometry, combines narrative soundtracks and abstract visuals to create a space for reflecting on the nature of relationships. Archetypal geometric forms may have a multitude of meanings, dependent on your personal experiences and associations. When in relationships, individuals’ thought-forms interact, like ripples caused from two pebbles thrown into a pond, creating new abstractions, patterns, and correlations. The films and images in our series employ 16mm color film and hand-processing for their inherent complexity and materiality, which shares concurrently with relationships the potential for the unexpected.
The audience—the viewer—the spectator—these terms tend to infer a passivity to the perception of a work. It is important, particularly in my recent collaborations, that the viewer be not only considered, but plays an active role in the discourse. “A story is a stable pattern of energy through which an infinity of personages may pass, ourselves included.” Hollis Frampton, an American Avant-garde filmmaker, photographer, and theorist, implies with this statement from his book Circles of Confusion, that without the listener’s presence and engagement, the true meaning of the film cannot develop; the placing of the viewer’s personal experience is what activates the film and creates meaning, via their associations with the film. In my installations, the audiences’ presence further changes the work, employing shadows and reflections, obscured and revealed by visitors’ interactions with the projected light. Their voice is vital to the dialogue.
