Material concerns
I am drawn to porcelain because of its purity and vulnerability, these qualities being perfectly analogous to the content of my work. In using this material I am acknowledging the fragile nature of both my subject matter and its artistic construct (by this I mean an idea containing various conceptual elements, typically one considered to be subjective and not based on empirical evidence).
I am attracted to the pure whiteness that porcelain provides. I often choose to leave much of my work unglazed and uncolored to underscore its existence as fictive, fantastic, or living in the realm of memory and imagination rather than reality. Whiteness provides a blank slate unto which the viewer may project his or her own details. Whiteness invites flights of fancy and daydreaming by transporting us into the realm of the imagined. With the blank in the mind, one is able to connect with the remembrances of physicality and experience, rather than their actuality. Color is used sparingly but intensely, and with particular emotive connotations in mind. The use of pearlescent metallic paint throughout the work (in both Play House and Pinnacles 1, 2, and 3) is meant to evoke a sense of both shimmering beauty and false preciousness/ pretenses.
My studio practice consists of an active interplay between image and object, space and time. Ideas are developed gradually, often undergoing a process of modification, revision, and recontextualization until their final form is discovered. The process of gradual discovery is essential to my work, as it allows me to generate intuitive responses to the imagery and subject matter I am exploring. The interaction between sculptural object and two-dimensional image gives me the opportunity to explore the imagery from a distanced and slightly removed perspective.
Presenting my ideas through photography and video serves both to disorient the viewer in terms of scale and to give a sense of authenticity to objects, which have been crafted for the explicit purpose of inhabiting the realms of fantasy, memory, and imagination. Additionally, transporting the objects from the realm of the viewer into a two dimensional worlds allows the work to exist purely in the mind, creating an experience removed from the realm of tactility and shared space. In this case, the viewer cannot readily use his or her body as a subconscious tool for measuring scale.
