STATEMENT OF WORK

I am a seventh-generation Mormon and thirty-one of my ancestors crossed the plains to settle the Salt Lake Valley in 1847. I left Mormonism six years ago and have since sought to understand the systems at play in my suburban Mountain West upbringing. My interdisciplinary practice draws on personal experience, family archives, and research on the American Frontier and its role in catapulting early settlement claims into systems of unbridled wealth and power that have wide-reaching societal, cultural, familial, and individual implications.   

The Kennecott Copper Mine (also known as Bingham Copper Mine) and the Mormon Church (also known as The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints) are primary subjects of my research on the American Frontier. Manifest Destiny made it possible for those at the top of early systems like the church and the copper mine to accumulate sizable wealth. The Mormon church’s prophet and president controls all $250+ billion in church assets and the Bingham Copper Mine produced approximately 19 million tons of copper from 1906 to 2011 (worth around $170 billion at 2024 market rates). But at the bottom of these structures lies the individual. My dad was caught in the crosshairs of both systems as a life-long orthodox Mormon and an employee of the copper mine for eleven years (see "Whosoever shall lose his life shall preserve it ['I’m glad I finally got laid off because I might have worked there my whole life']"). My work emphasizes personhood, and the impact powerful systems have on the life of an individual.  

My family photo archive along with contemporary images of myself, friends, and cultural, religious, and geographic identifiers are foundational in creating familiarity and life in my work. This imagery is expressed through printed digital photo collages mounted on plywood and photorealistic paintings on wood panel and photo-printed fabric. The simultaneous use of photographic imagery and representational painting disorients the viewer, emphasizes the veneer of perfection prevalent in Mormon culture, and provides tangible entry points into the work. Manipulated color palettes speak to the eeriness of an oppressive existence steeped in control, while dimensional elements obfuscate and distill visual information: copper pipes and rock salt reference local geography (eg: the mine and the Great Salt Lake) and ephemera like postcards, pamphlets, and posters reference specific sites (eg: Salt Lake City’s Temple Square), religious tenets, and symbols (eg: portraits of Jesus, LDS Articles of Faith, and MormonAds, etc.). The blend of varied media–photography, painting, sculpture, and assemblage–illustrate the impact that a wholly-encompassing system like Mormonism can have on a person’s existence. 

My work contemplates the impact of inherited traditions, the backs and land that they are built on, and the powerful systems that profit from them. It further questions the truth claims of systems like the Mormon Church and the Kennecott Copper Mine by examining the lives of individuals, families, and societies in their orbit to reflect on broader issues within the United States regarding religiosity, capitalism, quality of life, and the American Dream.