Statement
Within the manipulation of perception, lingering immaterial traces of engagement and investment are left behind. This investment is given without a certainty of what might be received. The focus of my work revolves around a willingness to put forth effort driven by curiosity. This is a deeply ingrained code to expand what is known and unknown. My aim is to bring these concerns to fruition through an environmentality hidden within captivating moments created out of light and space.
A visual feud of substance and materiality is created through transparent objects, mirrored surfaces, and materials such as gallery paint, monofilament, and spider silk. A perceived materiality is shifted through spatial manipulation by materials with mirrored surfaces. These mirrors create a visual feud by simultaneously residing in two impressions of space. In one, the mirror exists as a part of the environment that surrounds it. The second, the mirror reflects a translated interpretation of its surrounding environment. At this point, the mirror seizes to be material and becomes its own environment. Materials like spider silk, monofilament, gallery paint and acrylic achieve a visual tension through camouflage and the manipulation of tangibility. By the imitation of negative space, transparent objects blend between material and immaterial. Spider silk and monofilament utilize scale and opacity to shifting closer immateriality by dissolve within negative space. These distortions of visual materiality are used to emulate perception and the perceived, becoming abstract representations of curiosity and patience.
The final result of emulated perception is contingent on the relationship between the viewer and my work. The audience is the embodiment of physical and mental strain, active engagement, or patience reflected from the piece. Without the viewer's participation or willingness to engage, the piece is not complete. Tools such as mirrored text, harsh lighting and scale camouflage the emulated perception taxing the viewer in order to grant the reward. The manipulation of scale and harsh lighting allows for a secluded interaction between my work and the viewer. The straining of eyes or crouching to see help to remove irrelevant information from the environment of the piece allowing a more intimate engagement. Mirrored text is used to engage the audience through mental strain and patience. Having lived with dyslexia and a reading and writing disability the need to carefully decode text has deep roots in my daily life. Deciphering mirrored text is tedious forcing the viewer to be patience and put forth effort if the reward is desired. This reward from engagement of the viewer is not physical, and at times is not visual, but rather is the value of putting forth effort to expanding the known and unknown without certainty of a greater reward.
At times my work is purely self contained. Using sentimentality, these pieces become shielded from the viewer's comprehension. Person relics are used as a shroud over my work preventing perception and engagement. Sentimentality is deeply individual and next to impossible to fully translate to others. It is an invisible meaning surrounding an object that the collective can not perceive. When viewed individually, these self contained pieces appear conceptually unattainable and strictly aesthetic; yet when considered along side my work as a whole, reinforce my concepts or perception, engagement and investment.