ARTIST STATEMENT

My work is a love letter, a pink-soaked memoir, sticky and warm with blood, glimmering as the cicadas chirr. I become the specimen, in form, thought, and spirit reconciling the guilt bubbling within me. Utilizing a variety of materials, from oil paint to insects and bones, I play with the balance between the grotesque and the beautiful, reflecting my relationship with mental illness and its fluidity. 

The natural world feels cruel and ruthless in the way a wasp will eviscerate a dragonfly, leaving a glittering husk for the earth below to reclaim. But the beauty is in the balance birthed from brutality, a twisted sense of justice. My work lives in that liminal space where things aren’t quite as they seem, upon first glance: allure, but take a step closer and the cracks start to appear. In sharing my darkest moments I invite the viewer closer to me but also closer to themselves. By making this work I’ve come to find that vulnerability is contagious in the most beautiful way.