Artist Registry
The White Columns Curated Artist Registry is an online platform for emerging and under-recognized artists to share images and information about their respective practices. The Registry seeks to create a context for artists who have yet to benefit from wider critical, curatorial or commercial support. To be eligible, artists cannot be affiliated with a commercial gallery in New York City.
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STATEMENT OF WORK
I have been making paper collage mail art works on discarded library book covers for over ten years.
Recently, I have become interested in the space between the original mail art pieces (no longer mine) and the new paintings. During the painting process I bring in the element of fantasy, and alter small parts (a mailing address, the recipient’s name) for privacy or to delve into a new subject.
My M.A.P. (Mail Art Painting) ongoing project, which began during my Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts SHIFT residency, involved making large scale acrylic paintings on canvas, which are translations of previous mail art works that I sent out in 2020 and earlier, that I no longer have in my possession, as is the nature of mail art.
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Working primarily in mail art, my work focuses on diaristic sharing through letters written to friends and strangers.
My original mail art pieces, created during the pandemic, are hand painted personal letters in a cursive script, sending a wish or protest words requested by the addressee, on discarded library book covers. Beneath the painted text on the book covers, I collage small fragments of photos and printed ephemera along with a typewriter lettering.
My mail art emerged within the riot grrrl zine scene of the 1990s and helped me cope with my transient childhood. Much like my early zines, my mail art operates as resistance, the essential tenant that drives my practice. My work employs empowered visibility, that by its very exposure challenges structures of oppression in today’s society who might otherwise gaslight, silence, or patronize the life of a low income, femme of color. I use language in the processes of resistance, documenting rather than hiding the ramifications of my mental health, attempting to connect with others through an exhibition of self on my own terms, and always returning to the personal as political.
While working in a library archive for ten years, I assisted researchers and staff by organizing boxes of manuscripts, reading many old letters which solidified my appreciation of the materiality of letter writing. This archival digging left a strong imprint on my art practice: witnessing the historic value of a letter capturing the writer's daily rumination, whether relevant to the political climate, and its resulting value for researchers in the future.