Artist Statement

My work explores materiality, the body and its functions, and the experience of the world both tangible and intangible via our capacity for sensual and erotic connectivity. I utilize a variety of common construction and craft materials and processes to create forms that are playful and curious, as they are subversive. Clay, plaster, cement, plywood, insulation foam, yarn and fabric mingle in forms that range beyond the aggregate of materials. Rooted by their material histories these new forms depart into the imaginative space of the viewer.

My forms reference interior and exterior; are intimate yet expansive; beautiful yet repulsive. By exposing the secrets of the body, the work engages the grotesque and the erotic as they connect physiological and psychological existence. Emphasizing orifices and internal cavities, I embody the fluid passage and exchange of inner and outer experiences. This visceral connectivity positions the ‘mind’ and ‘body’ as interconnected with an awareness of presence as perpetual and always becoming.

Though my work encompasses a variety of materials and process, clay is the primary material even when it is not present. I am bound to the capacity of clay as the most base and formless of all materials.

Clay is imbued with rich and varied histories where ceramic objects reside in the background of our everyday lives. Our relationships to this material and these objects, though often overlooked, are deeply seeded in a history of movement and display through utility and ornament. The craft status of ceramics may seem a disadvantage, yet I find it very important as it lends to a fluidity of re-discovery of that which is already present; a movement of ubiquity and anonymity where other disciplines might be tightly bound and codified by traditions of criticism and uninterrupted dialog. Ceramics has the advantage of already being there; it just needs to be seen and enacted. It crops up then fades into the background only to emerge once more. It is this perpetuity of emergence and connection to materiality around which my practice is centered, expands and returns.