My inspiration is propelled by my horror at what I see and read about daily, and yet, I am still a maker, transfixed by materials and the transformational impact of the hand. The past several years have seen a marked shift in my interests from abstraction to research-based artwork that reflects the urgency of my ecological and political concerns. Through working with honeybees and investigating the issues surrounding nuclear power following the tsunami-induced collapse of Fukushima, I have expanded my practice to something that resonates more deeply with my moral imperative to communicate about urgent issues of global distress. Employing references to the souvenir and the miniature, the abject and the uncanny, I endeavor to make ideas and materiality meet by working with living systems, new technologies and socio-politically charged materials and imagery.

 

Some constants remain through the years that encompass a personal lexicon of signs. Vivid color, blobs and fluid drips, biomorphic shapes and tumorous forms travel through multiple bodies of work from drawings, to sculpture, to photography, reflecting a fascination with the interior spaces of the body, disease, mutation, the abject and otherness. I am interested in the beautiful only as a contrast to the grotesque, for, similar to death making life more meaningful, it is in these binary contrasts that we come to know the world we inhabit.

 

For the past two years, I have been working with colonies of honeybees within the systems of the hive in the creation of artworks. As this work is driven by the seasonal needs, whims and timing of my tiny collaborators, I typically am engaged with multiple bodies of work at once, shifting between research, studio engagement, and work in the field.