I examine everything, from the mold on my rancid spaghetti sauce and the texture of my toenails to the drops of yellow water that collect on the ceiling of my bathroom after a shower. I look at everything and mentally catalog shapes colors scents and feelings to be further dissected, categorized, contained, and interpreted. I see the patterns in nature and the colors as they mix in layers of transparency and opacity, and I make no distinctions between the natural world and the man made; in fact, I believe the hive created by honey bees is no more “natural” than the cities created by humans. Both Cities and hives are a constructed through the natural impulses of communal and social animals. In addition to sharing some traits with insects we also share an intimate space.
We live with small nibbling animals and sucking and biting insects. They live in the folds of our couches, beds, and clothes, run over us in our sleep, and nest in the walls of our homes. They eat the crumbs we carelessly drop, and the skin that we slough off; they drink our blood, leaving welts, and take tiny bites of our flesh. They infest us -- and we poison them, trap them, drown them and burn them. They also carry disease that can infect us.
We are surrounded, filled and covered with viruses, bacteria and fungi. They eat off us, into us, and for us. They maim us, kill us, and spread through us, making us their home. I am afraid of what they can do to us. I am afraid of the way they spread through the blood stream, using the paths that nurture and heal as a means of transportation and systematic infection. They creep and cause the skin to bubble and ooze, turning soft flesh into hard scales and leathery patches.
Studying images of pests and pestilence is like poking a wound that doesn’t hurt in the traditional sense. It’s like the insertion of a needle into a tensed muscle: it makes me light headed and nauseated. It creates a pressure in my stomach and the nape of my neck. As I probe the feeling deeper, my attraction counteracts my fear and discomfort. I habituate, desensitizing myself to the horror and learn to find the beauty in it.
So I infect the made object. I make it pretty, pleasing, and disturbing. I use beautiful colors, pleasing patterns, luscious materials to create an infection, a spot, or a spreading patch that necessitates the removal of the limb or section for the health of the organ or the building. I make the pinkies in their piles naked and vulnerable.
My work is an exploration of the disturbing and the endearing. It walks a psychological line between interest and disgust, preciousness and repulsion. I am fascinated by the tension created in displaying objects and installations that evoke strong visceral and opposing responses. It is my intention to create a situation in which the viewer is able to empathize with the vulnerability and fragility of both the work and the thing represented.
We live with small nibbling animals and sucking and biting insects. They live in the folds of our couches, beds, and clothes, run over us in our sleep, and nest in the walls of our homes. They eat the crumbs we carelessly drop, and the skin that we slough off; they drink our blood, leaving welts, and take tiny bites of our flesh. They infest us -- and we poison them, trap them, drown them and burn them. They also carry disease that can infect us.
We are surrounded, filled and covered with viruses, bacteria and fungi. They eat off us, into us, and for us. They maim us, kill us, and spread through us, making us their home. I am afraid of what they can do to us. I am afraid of the way they spread through the blood stream, using the paths that nurture and heal as a means of transportation and systematic infection. They creep and cause the skin to bubble and ooze, turning soft flesh into hard scales and leathery patches.
Studying images of pests and pestilence is like poking a wound that doesn’t hurt in the traditional sense. It’s like the insertion of a needle into a tensed muscle: it makes me light headed and nauseated. It creates a pressure in my stomach and the nape of my neck. As I probe the feeling deeper, my attraction counteracts my fear and discomfort. I habituate, desensitizing myself to the horror and learn to find the beauty in it.
So I infect the made object. I make it pretty, pleasing, and disturbing. I use beautiful colors, pleasing patterns, luscious materials to create an infection, a spot, or a spreading patch that necessitates the removal of the limb or section for the health of the organ or the building. I make the pinkies in their piles naked and vulnerable.
My work is an exploration of the disturbing and the endearing. It walks a psychological line between interest and disgust, preciousness and repulsion. I am fascinated by the tension created in displaying objects and installations that evoke strong visceral and opposing responses. It is my intention to create a situation in which the viewer is able to empathize with the vulnerability and fragility of both the work and the thing represented.