STATEMENT OF WORK

I work with molten wax and discarded packaging. This process-based practice has always involved trying to control that which cannot be controlled (hot wax), which puts me just outside of my comfort zone. David Bowie famously said "Go a little bit out of your depth. And when you don’t feel that your feet are quite touching the bottom, you’re just about in the right place to do something exciting.” 

Each of my pieces contains a used bit of cardboard - a box or packaging. The painted cardboard is sandwiched within layers of pigmented waxes on a wood panel. I consider this work to be collage in that it combines disparate elements into one unified piece. In this sense, my collage agents are pigmented encaustic, refined beeswax, and painted cardboard. I embrace this approach because I am dedicated to experimenting with materials and gaining insight intuitively through process. Each of these works is poured and individually cast, each piece unique and un-reproducible.

I explore the structure and form of packaging. I think about how it exemplifies our consumer culture and the disposability of modern technology. The double entendre of working with “packaging” allows me to re-present, or re-package, these scraps of consumerism creating mementos and “embalming” them to function as time-capsule-like objects, possible future reminders of how casually careless we were with our only earth.