Artist Statement

In my work I use clay as a canvas positioning my drawings, paintings, and photographs onto the surface to create sculptural figures who are simultaneously revealed and veiled. Narratives and stories, tropes, hidden images, and secrets confront the ongoing behavior of dismissing female identity and perspective while celebrating the bountiful history and power of the feminine. As a mother I am steeped by my own matrilineal misinformation and my work engages myths of the body, medicine, motherhood, and religion to critique the historical subjugation of women by imposing absurd standards of beauty and behavior. My daughter is often my muse and we work together creating dialogues, photographs, and collages that influence my final works and reflect how she and I process cultural expectations of bodies, race, and relationships between mothers and daughters.

In the past two years my work has begun to focus on mental health, equality, and body autonomy of those identifying as female. My abstract porcelain sculptures sit at the intersection of art and healing. My work as an art therapist informs the process of creating these pieces. Each sculpture is created with authentic haptic perception and a sensitivity to my body’s somatic experiences in the making process. In addition, I utilize personal rituals and elements of automatism and intuitive sculpting techniques to explore healing, mental health, and feminine identity and autonomy in an age of regress in response to politics, religion, and loss and grief created by Covid19.