Statement
Nature plays a predominant role in my work, work that
is fundamentally informed by and is a direct response to an innate affinity
humans have toward the natural world. The biophilia hypothesis suggests
that there is an instinctive bond between human beings and other living
systems. The artwork I create reacts to this concept through references
to the landscape, fauna, and flora of the natural world. Through sculpture
and installation, I explore the unexpected forms and compositions the
world around us is capable of revealing.
My work is inspired by aerial images of the earth, especially the unusual
shapes bodies of water take from such a high vantage point. I take these
aerial images (such as watershed systems, lakes, rivers) and further abstract
these already abstracted shapes to create sewn and stuffed sculptural
pieces; works that are freed from their geographical and cartographic
reference.
I recently began recreating guns as soft sculpture. By making distinctive gun shapes abstract, I transform these highly charged, often threatening objects into simple, yielding fabric pieces. The firearm becomes "disarmed," freed from its myriad symbolic references.