My work inhabits an alternative, through-the-looking-glass universe I use as an escape from my history. Focusing on the fluidity of identity, the characters within my work are allegorical representations of the chaotic and unsettling realities of my life as a child. The girl in the red dress stands in as my alter ego and as a symbol of my inner turmoil. Landscapes, particularly water, are threatening elements that can be soothed by the intensity of color. I favor symbolic, saturated colors and thick line-drawing, evoking stained glass, graphic novels, and folkloric fairy-tales. In this body of work, I use a bolder palette and move into sculptural assemblage and installation, intensifying the hyper-stylization of my earlier work. Recent experiments introduce 3D elements into the 2D space to emulate pattern and adornment, especially within the landscape elements. I use repeating shapes and distorted motifs in the form of various 3D objects such as wooden dowels, nails and buttons. My perspective on identity is through a filter of eccentricity celebrating the choice to be strange, to be different to be your own ‘other.’ This allows me to inject elements of humor in my work when the autobiographical, interpersonal and broader social commentary gets too dark.
