Artist statement rough draft

There is a lot here, and many concepts that need to be consolidated, but this is what I have been working on:

My work is about facilitating contemplative spaces within the context of everyday life.
I am interested in revealing a common thread between meditative practice and everyday actions.

Working with repetition as an aspect of meditative practice, collaborating with other artists to question ideas of authorship, and illuminating the presence of absence to speak about tragedy and loss, have been predominant choices in my work. From paintings that refer to fragile layers of the human psyche, to using Morse code to translate text into highly ornamental installations, I am interested in re-thinking notions of the Everyday as it exists in relation to spirituality.

Employing a wide array of media allows me to investigate this relationship in different ways. It is my intention to work with the delicate nature of human relationships, and the transient nature of human existence. This inquiry is made visible by a painting; participating in a public cleaning performance may bring more awareness to those aspects of human nature which we tend to overlook.

As an example, the beaded installations I create, or Conscious Objects, are three-dimensional drawings that can also be worn. They are Morse code translations of poems and texts that highlight repetitive daily activities typically associated with domestic work. The nature of the chosen texts is reflected in each piece’s construction – cyclical, at times arduous – to underscore the interconnection between meditation and daily life.

This is also reflected in my paintings and performance work. I work together with another artist, and created an ongoing project called “Meaning Cleaning”, which performs public cleanings as a way to take responsibility for shared environments, cleanse spaces of past experiences, and also to play with social codes and notions of what is acceptable public behavior. Our actions attempt to activate spaces by taking responsibility for a common ground and a shared history; our focus as artists is the space that is created to allow for more natural communication of passersby. Although we work on the foundation beneath our feet, it is the dynamic that is created that reminds us of our interconnection.

Through experiences of travel, I have been able to process more extensively how my work can comment on, embrace, and transform the inherited stains of the past. Being outside of known structures has afforded me the space to become more aware to a greater scope of human suffering. The fundamental elements of Meaning Cleaning were literally laid out on the studio floor at a residency in Tuscany, Italy: my task of keeping a communal area clean quickly became my artwork and subsequently helped me remove the separation in my mind between art and everyday life. In a cultural exchange workshop in Cape Town, South Africa, I was able to recognize my own marginal ways of thinking and reflect on the choice to transform personal trauma into a more universal compassion against the inequalities of human justice. Drawing from personal experience, I attempt to confront and transform my own notions of perceived vulnerability with grace, beauty, dignity, and compassion.