STATEMENT OF WORK

As a teenage girl, I fantasized about painting commercial billboards over and hijacking their distorted messages of desire and identity. As an artist, advertising and mass media imagery in the form of magazines have been a primary material in my sculptures.

‘Peel’ is a series of built up paper collage of mass media imagery on ceramic tiles. Tiles are omnipresent as the architectural skin of lobbies and subway tunnels in New York City. Commuting by subway, I grew to love the complex images that are created by filth and grime on the old tiled walls. They talk to me of the passing of time and the complex layered society that New York City is. For this series of work, I cut out imagery of models' skin from mainstream magazines and layer it over and over with glue to create bas reliefs on tiles. I then cut, and carve with sharp knives to reveal the layers of paper beneath. The skins peel, uncovering strange patterns and breaking open boundaries. With the title ‘Peel’ I reflect on the process of peeling away the surface in order to re-examine our belief systems and habits as a society, and as an individual to peel away the constructed ego and the culturally conditioned mind. 

During my spring 2024 residency at the LMCC Arts center on Governors Island, I started incorporating the waste expanded polystyrene foam pieces that the wind blows off the ocean onto the island. I was shocked to see these petroleum based materials, as they break down but never disappear, clogging and poisoning our soil, our own bodies and all life on our planet. With this series of work, I want to honor Gaia and acknowledge the violence we are committing to her body, and as an extension to ourselves.