What is my work about?
My work is always a combination of performance and sculpture. It is rooted in a deep curiosity for the material world and its lived history. The often disparate materials I search out and use come together in an exquisite corpse, like lines in a poem or ingredients in a spell. From this focused and frugal repertoire of de-contextualized material combined with ritualized and repetitious actions, I work to create objects that emanate a sense of condensed psychic power, self-agency and sacred weight. Using references from both my rural upbringing and more exotic raw materials from around the globe, the work explores both intimate and universal themes of connection to the world, to its long history and our place within both.
Artist Statement
From an early age I was fascinated by the contradictions and connections between the teachings of my Christian fundamentalist upbringing and the lessons I found in the natural world all around me. I have always been interested in geology in general and fossils in particular, the latter I would hunt in stream beds near my home as a kid. These rock-hard pieces of evidence of lost worlds and deep-time fascinated me and conflicted with the scriptures I was made to memorize. The rocks began a slow burning doubt.
While I initially rebelled against that religion, I also learned that a wholesale rejection of spirituality was not satisfying. In school as I studied art history and philosophy and developed my own art practice, I realized that the performance of object making could be used to ask the larger questions I had. My most current work, outlined in this application, continues my efforts to build meaning and connection from the physical world, while carving out a space to discuss larger ontological issues of time, death, the universe at large and our places within all those things.
These works use the lived history of my materials as both content and concept. With their platonic shapes and subdued palette, they are at first glance simple and staunchly formal, but a closer examination reveals conceptual complexity. Whether I’m using dopamine synthesized from plants in India, dirt gathered from freshly dug graves, a poem on a piece of paper flown once around the globe, or a black perfume drifting through the air, entering the noses of viewers and literally touching their brains, the importance of the primary matter and its movement through time are the most interesting aspects to me. I am always surprised by the strange poetry that is formed when these disparate materials and actions are combined. I strive for my work to embody what it is about and to be what it signifies.
CV
EDUCATION
2003
Honors BA, Art History/Studio Art, SUNY University at Buffalo, NY
SELECTED EXHIBITIONS
2014
“Personal Prehistories”, Scaramouche Gallery, NY
“We Were All Rocks Once” Sorbus Gallery, Helsinki
“Roving Room”, Habersham Mills, GA
“Several Circles”, Elizabeth Foundation, New York
“Dark Markets”, CUAC Salt Lake City UT, and Oliver Francis, Dallas TX
2013
“Wet Cement”, The Spring Break Art Show, New York, NY
“Head”, Yale Institute Library, New Haven CT
2012
“Year One”, Toomer Labzda Gallery, NY
“Return to Rattlesnake Mountain”, Wassaic Project Summer Exhibition, Wassaic NY
“NONILLION”, Regina Rex, Brooklyn, NY
2011
“AMP”, Toomer Labzda Gallery, New York, NY
2010
“Accrochage”, Ramiken Crucible, New York, NY
2009
“Psychic Neighbor”, Ramiken Crucible, New York, NY
AWARDS AND RESIDENCIES
2011
NYFA Sculpture Fellowship, New York, NY
2009
Resident, Vermont Studio Center, Johnson VT
2002
Resident, SVA Summer Residency Program, New York, NY
2002
Rumsey Award Winner, University at Buffalo, Buffalo NY