Artist Statement

“Existence is relationship”- Alan Watts

“…food is an action, more primal then speech and more universal then language”

- Betty Fussell A Slice of Life

We all must eat. How do the objects we consume and surround ourselves become a part of our cultural and psychological understanding of self? Through reimagining the radical storytelling power of food, I paint the theater of the dinner table. Synthesizing contemporary life and mythology, I map culture, place, and self through the objects we consume; viewing the table-scape as a stage and commons. Deeply invested in the duality of the sacred and profane, my paintings act as hermeneutic diagrams of narrative and communication: creating meaningful and nuanced connections between the object identity of things that fill our everyday lives and their associative psychological, historical, and narrative power.

Conjuring discussion with Chronos and Kairos, the meal is placed within the liminal; where all bodies are simultaneously present and absent. Sometimes the table acts as a shrine, others a stage, or narrative portrait. The paintings are as much about life as they are about death. Deeply invested in the histories of the fauvists, mystics, and Nabi, my work utilizes the personal to tap into the collective unconscious as a means of investigating the existential, alchemical, and relationship we have with the material world.

Dyslexic and stereo-blind, I act as an artist- anthropologist armed with a visual vocabulary, I am interested in the dramas of the heart, the head, and the stomach and the ways in which those all connect. Raised by a single mother and grandmother in the kitchen, to me there is nothing more intimate than the rituals of sharing meals. Feminist, maximalist, and unapologetically colorful, I navigate the collective unconscious, alchemy, and the duality of the sacred and profane through paint.