Lives and works in Minneapolis
Mentor: John Keston
From Indiana where I received my BFA and MA in studio art from Ball State University, I am currently an MFA candidate at the University of Minnesota graduating in May 2015. Experiencing many opportunities within the arts including a residency at ACRE in Wisconsin, a CBAA Grabhorn Fellowship in bookbinding, and an upcoming solo show at the Defibrillator Gallery in Chicago, IL, I am always searching to expand what my artistic process is capable of through research, travel, and immersion in new opportunities.
My art reevaluates the utility in everyday objects, gestures, and ideas through poetics. I question the use of everyday objects in order to transform them into agents for questions beyond the mundane, by seeking associative relationships between the emotional experiences that arise from actions and objects. I combine gesture and sound with materials such as photography, video, drawing, found objects, and sculpture.
The relationships between materials invite viewers to recontextualize imbued meaning. I like to reorient information surrounding an object, and place it in the ever-evolving context of the gallery to create a new meaning focused on an analytic, reflective awareness—to inspire self-consciousness, in a way. Personally and culturally significant objects and spaces (from turquoise sweatpants I once urinated in to a re-creation of the Antarctic sleeping quarters of British explorer Captain Robert Falcon Scott) provide examples of how we place meaning onto objects, yet we are able to transform the materials through action.
I value creativity as a means to navigate functions of understanding—understanding in the sense of orienting one’s perspectives, both physical and abstract. Through my work, I define poetics as the new questions that arise from objects when the stories, images, or ideas that surround the objects change.
A recent project of mine, Dressing the Future in My Humility, involved sewing 107 pairs of child-sized turquoise sweatpants modeled after the pair I was wearing when I urinated on stage during kindergarten. I greeted each gallery guest with a pair of these pants and a booklet telling their story; by my giving away these turquoise tokens of my humility, the facsimile was transformed into a hand-me-down, like a layer of skin being sloughed off and gifted to the next generation.
Thanks to John Keston, Christine Baeumler, and Diane Mullin.