STATEMENT OF WORK

In my visual work, I think of words as my starting point, and look at images and objects as being “not-words.” Working on a spectrum that has words at one end and objects at the other, I explore how aligned with or estranged from one another these two forms of expression can be. What situations make words and objects feel like synonyms of each other, and in what ways do they exist as opposites? Even further, what does it mean for a visual work to take on the structure of a sentence or phrase that is its title?

With commonly found materials like wood, cardboard, and paper, I construct modest-sized works that combine recognizable forms and abstracted settings into minimal narrative situations. I'm interested in my works being mock-ups of scenes or actions that only fully congeal in the language that makes up their titles. They are notes that get taken in the process of writing, and lie in the space of being almost, nearly, or not quite something; objects that hide through being shown in a way that resembles the punchline of a joke—seemingly straightforward and literal, but slyly concealing some other significance.