Artist Statement
My current work is about identity, mapping of the self, reconstruction and preservation. I investigate how we build ourselves from the inside out as we grow up, using elements of places we inhabited as children. I consider what lines the inner walls of our psyches, emotions and remnants of visual bits. In my work, walls represent an allegory of the self. I think of them as versatile constructions containing the contradictions of our human experiences. They are barriers or protections, mirrors or veils, and also non-sentient witnesses of time. They express place, struggle, culture, beliefs, socio-economic backgrounds, taste, aspiration. I use DIY home carpentry materials such as plaster, grout, nets, latex paints, wood panels and other supplies that I incorporate to acrylic, oil paint, collage, wallpaper, charcoal but also fabric and clay, to fabricate walls that encapsulate past memories, revealed, hidden, protected or damaged. The dynamic of “push and pull” is central to my work and emulates an impression of depth that at times suggests there is a potential passage to recovering something lost and at other times that there is a risk of falling through, without return. I also explore configurations of the grid, as a structure and as a pattern. I see materials and textures as a way of embodying the tactility of memories, the impressions and the biochemical changes they trigger in our bodies called “engrams”. I strive to create layers that give out a sense of decay, tactility or longing juxtaposed with observational charcoal drawings, xerox copies or cyanotypes. I project erasure and disappearance, but I also think about strategies to preserve the self by containing and mapping those fragile memories that are the backdrops of our psyches.
Credit Photo: @taysize
Available works on paper in the Transformer Flat File