STATEMENT OF WORK

My practice involves dialogues with material, formalism, mathematics, history, culture, and contemporary circumstance.  Employing sequences from numbers pi or e, I create wall-based geometric abstractions, where values of digits direct a composition’s formal structure: placement of line and shape, structure of a grid, or pattern and color relationships. I look for simple and direct ways to combine industrial felts with acrylic sheet scraps from a previous body of work, as slow stitching, a traditional craft element, binds layers together. Recent works combine languages of sculpture, embroidery, and weaving; and may allude to painting, drawing, or tapestry. They reside on the periphery of established artforms. This I believe to be a consequence of immigrating when young, to perpetually float between two cultures, always residing in between, never fully of one or the other.

At home in Chicago, new works tend to be responses to a specific scrap of acrylic, or a curiosity about new ways of combining materials. Expressions focus on math, geometry, and language of the material and tend to be quite reduced. During international residencies, the dialogues with material, formalism, and math expand with influence of specific histories and cultures. They begin as responses to some detail, aspect, or specificity of a place.  Inspiration can come from walking the streets, local cultural and historical museums, or quotes from books.

Most of 2024 focused on a series of laser-cut acrylic sheets separated by spacers.  Following a specific number sequence, where values of digits determine diameters of circles or ellipses, 3 or 4 sheets with a single, simple, geometric shape are stacked to create a community which connects or isolates individual forms.