artist statement

What role does imagination and art-making have in today’s society and political climate?

How can entering a dreamlike state affect one’s consciousness and ideas about what is possible around him/her? 

Paint, installation, and filmmaking are my processes for reimagining a life infused with fantasy. Depending on the medium, my work ranges from quiet observation of my surroundings to completely manipulated reconstructions of reality through the tool of filmmaking. My paintings are studies of life--I approach painting and drawing as spontaneous processes all based on intuitively responding in real time to my surroundings. I see my installations as a slight zooming out of my personal lens, as I add the ingredient of pre-existing physical spaces. My filmmaking is the most zoomed out process of them all; it is a reflective construction—I collect videos, sounds, ideas, and then recreate experiences through manipulated sound design and imagery. In this sense, my paintings are studies, installations are transformations, and films are complete re-imaginings or re-creations. They are each different methods of processing and working with my life experiences, finding the magic or alternate reality that I can extract from them, and turning it all into artwork.

A magically transformed space is a disruption of reality, a crack in what is known or what is expected. For example, my site-specific work addresses this directly, as I infuse pre-existing spaces with unexpected fantastical color or objects. The act of radically transforming a space implies that maybe change is possible. Furthermore, it implies that it doesn’t just happen by itself--it takes presence, work, and imagination. I am seeking to reimagine what exists, to infuse reality with fantasy. By inviting an audience into my imagined world, I hope to ignite their imaginations and encourage people to think beyond the reality that we are given. My personal ideals within my artwork of imagination, change, questioning of structures already in place, are mirrors for this same ideology that I hope to encourage in societal, political, environmental issues we are faced with today.