Artist Statement

In my work, drawing parallels the process of making self, belonging and place. It is mutable and unfinished— a process of ongoing formation, rather than pure object— and therefore not bound to any particular medium. My paintings, sculptures, and installations function as different forms of drawing. Paper remains the one material constant, manifesting as skin-like abaca paper sculptures and repurposed cardboard installations in addition to gouache and graphite renderings on flat white paper sheets. Through explorations of fibers that range from the mass-produced and disposable to the unique and regional, my drawings evoke diverse kinds of touch, labor, and value as imbricated with these materials and those who interact with them.

           

My purpose in engaging with drawing in this expanded sense relates to French philosopher Jean-Luc Nancy’s central inquiries of drawing: “how does the world form itself, and how am I allowed to embrace its movement?” The world forms itself in my work as apparently discrete things nevertheless being intimately bound together. The domestic disorder of laundry, half-shuttered window-blinds, and overgrown houseplants collide and coalesce with dramatic exteriors, skies and woodlands. Women of color extend across picture planes, striking ambiguous poses, resisting to hold the viewer’s gaze, and complicate readings of gendered and nationalistic brands for global food and goods suppliers.

           

In embrace of the world’s movement, I use sweeping brushwork and flowing lines to portray the slippage between human, plant, land, and manmade products as well as their friction. By rendering figure and ground, natural and unnatural as reforming and informing each other, in addition to their social implications of gender, race, labor, and belonging, my works on paper engage with Stefano Harney and Fred Moten’s sense of hapticality— that braided (like fiber, like paper) sociality by which one’s self and others feel through each other.