statement

I use abstract sculpture to explore bias and faulty perception. At its core, my practice is a dismantling of the conservative dogma of my childhood. The daughter of a horse trainer in Texas, I was raised with little awareness of the world beyond my town and church. My exposure to differing viewpoints came later while living in France and Japan.

I contrast objective fact with subjective patterns of thinking by drawing on the natural sciences and figures of speech. My series "Bird Brains" is a visual glossary of bird-related idioms whose meanings point to human irrationality. From Black Swan Theory – a mistaken belief that something is impossible – to The Ugly Duckling, who was actually a swan, I tap into colloquial language to highlight the ways we misconstrue the world. Each artwork takes one such expression or story and portrays it as a sculpture using its starring bird's shapes and colors.

A metaphor for my yearning to bridge cultural gaps in understanding, my work combines materials from disparate chapters of my life. I employ horsehair as a nod to Texas, prototyping fabric from my time working in Paris couture, and sumi ink from Japan. In homage to the multiculturalism of New York, I use the versatile material of thermoplastic to create elements that are sometimes mounted sideways on panels like glass fins, other times sewn into leather or piercing translucent organza. The material’s ability to take many shapes and adopt a multitude of appearances denotes the expansiveness of humanity.

Drawings in Three Dimensions: how I began using thermoplastic

Starting in 2016, I started using thermoplastic (an artist-grade “shrinky-dink”) to explore visual perception. Often beginning with a black and white line drawing from my sketchbook, I reinterpret sketches as sculptures by extruding the lines up from the surface. By mounting these sculptural details perpendicular to the panel, I give the resulting object a multitude of appearances depending on the observer’s viewpoint. When viewed frontally, the sculptures often appear as little more than lines on a page. They reveal their dimensionality when viewed from other angles, challenging the notion that the truth can be fully known from a fixed perspective.