As an artist, I am split between the roles of consumer and producer. I shop at thrift stores. I arrange, and rearrange the items that I purchase. But I also make things, such as the roof façade of an old school Taco Bell building, and the giant Pooh Bear book end, that intersect in “Fuzzy Logic,” 2010. My practice is primarily concerned with deconstructing the language of objects. My work investigates the histories, power relations, and psychological motivations that lead to the production of cultural artifacts. With the objects that I make by hand, I am examining why certain things from my childhood such as, The Little Mermaid, The Guinness Book of World Records, and Taco Bell, hold a monumental presence in my memory- and I am questioning the assumptions that lie behind those memories. The addition of found objects to these hand-built forms allows me to disrupt my own assumptions by challenging the monumental with contingencies, and by placing the personal within a context that is historical. I think of my sculptures and collection of found objects, as pieces and parts that can be rearranged, added to, subtracted from, disassembled and reassembled, within the context of different exhibitions of the work. My work is not about fixity. It is about examining, disrupting, and taking part in material exchange, as a form of language, a language that, like any other, must constantly mutate to remain expressive.
The my most recent installation, “If the Ocean was Whiskey,” is an immersive environment composed of artifacts that are reminiscent of the Old West, maritime culture, elementary school classrooms, and Southern Californian architecture. These artifacts are arranged, and rearranged, to create a mashup of vernaculars used to express my imagined understandings of the historical narratives to which these artifacts refer. Driven by a desire to unveil the emotional aura surrounding the object, I am seeking to close the gap between the object and that which it represents by creating a contemporary mythology in the form of a blasted narrative that allows the viewer to dwell in the realm of the fantastic.