artist statements
 

Finding Forms: Organic Abstration

Plump gestural shapes that are layered with skins, flaps, orifices, sacs, and appendages are features of my recent works. Their shiny bulbous forms, which oscillate between abstraction and figuration, evolve from my intuitive process of finding forms through both drawing and sculptural studies. In a pseudo-scientific way, I combine abstract patterns, human anatomy, and shapes found in nature to create a diverse range of specimen-like forms. Spliced together from bits and pieces of multiple sources, their surreal shapes are familiar but no longer recognizable. As hybrid forms, they are as much about the loss of identity as they are about the concoction of new ones. They manifest as curious mutations and strange figurations, which are at once beautiful, grotesque, sensual, and humorous.

My works combine three overlapping cutting edge technologies, which are digital sculpting, 3D scanning, and digital fabrication. Working with polygons that are manipulated on-screen, I push, pull, carve, and mold forms as if working with digital clay. The objects are formed virtually through digital sculpting and are then 3D printed and fabricated in other materials, such as resin or bronze. It is a process that involves both invention and discovery. From scribbles to data, and data to material, I relish the ability to find forms and materialize them in the physical world.

Black Fairy Tales and Other Myths

I create images and objects that explore race, double consciousness, and the construction of identity. The images are a synthesis of children’s book illustrations, fairy tales, and invented characters with historical narratives, images from popular culture, and social critique to create a wonderland like world that has gone disturbingly awry, but is seductively beautiful. The images are surreal, yet they investigate many of the myths and absurd truths that exist in our real world experiences. Dark subject matter that is sweetened by cartoon-like figures, lyrical compositions, vivid color, and bulbous sensual forms, unify a host of iconic references in these constructed environments. It becomes a way of exploring and confronting the images that we consume in order to create a dialogue between image, perception, and constructed reality. Through these open-ended narratives, I explore the displacement involved in the expectations of the utopian American dream and the reality of racism, mind colonization, confused notions of beauty, and hybridity.