The main focus of my work stems around the polar opposites coming together as one. For the longest time in my art making career, I used photographs as a means of keeping memories alive and drawing as a means of keeping my anxiety quiet. Both helping but in very different fashions.
The drawing side of my brain has developed as a visual representation of the chaotic thoughts and these live-wire feelings moving about inside my mind. The anxiety on paper. These shapes mimic a sort of microorganism but in a very abstract vaginal shape. The use of repetitive almond and teardrop shapes; helping me cope.
The photography side of my brain likes things to be at peace, with a void of human interaction. This emptiness left behind and more recently, it has focused mostly on Chairs. The chairs represent the discarded, the no-longer-desired. How quickly we toss comfort for an endless list of reasons.
I started combining these two sides of myself shortly after finding out my brain functions as Bipolar. So when I combined the two sides, the drawing portion and the photography portion, it just made sense; it clicked. My art is finally in a place to represent me as a whole entity.
Why chairs and not something else?
I've spent at least seven years photographing inside empty buildings, homes, warehouses, churches, etc. and it didn’t matter where I went, how dirty the place, or how empty it was, there was always some type of seating left behind. It didn’t matter the quality of the chair or the safety of the surroundings but that someone somewhere at some point decided that that was going to be the thing that gave them comfort, even if just a moment of time. The more and more places I ventured the more I saw these symbols popping up as each one tells their own story. Where they’ve been how old they are what kind of conditions they lived in. These chairs take on their own persona because of the story and the idea that they build up to the viewer.
Why vaginal doodles?
When I started doing these drawings, they were very much a direct representation, a symbol, of me going through a divorce. I found, and still find, myself drawn to these patterns, to quiet my anxiety, so I let the shape guide me. When I started these drawings, the almond and teardrop shape would always repeat. For me these vaginal designs represent a constant rebirth of myself. I look to it as a symbol of strength and continued force. If a circle is infinite and women will never cease to create, then for me, this represents ultimate power and inner strength.
These are me and I am them.
The drawing side of my brain has developed as a visual representation of the chaotic thoughts and these live-wire feelings moving about inside my mind. The anxiety on paper. These shapes mimic a sort of microorganism but in a very abstract vaginal shape. The use of repetitive almond and teardrop shapes; helping me cope.
The photography side of my brain likes things to be at peace, with a void of human interaction. This emptiness left behind and more recently, it has focused mostly on Chairs. The chairs represent the discarded, the no-longer-desired. How quickly we toss comfort for an endless list of reasons.
I started combining these two sides of myself shortly after finding out my brain functions as Bipolar. So when I combined the two sides, the drawing portion and the photography portion, it just made sense; it clicked. My art is finally in a place to represent me as a whole entity.
Why chairs and not something else?
I've spent at least seven years photographing inside empty buildings, homes, warehouses, churches, etc. and it didn’t matter where I went, how dirty the place, or how empty it was, there was always some type of seating left behind. It didn’t matter the quality of the chair or the safety of the surroundings but that someone somewhere at some point decided that that was going to be the thing that gave them comfort, even if just a moment of time. The more and more places I ventured the more I saw these symbols popping up as each one tells their own story. Where they’ve been how old they are what kind of conditions they lived in. These chairs take on their own persona because of the story and the idea that they build up to the viewer.
Why vaginal doodles?
When I started doing these drawings, they were very much a direct representation, a symbol, of me going through a divorce. I found, and still find, myself drawn to these patterns, to quiet my anxiety, so I let the shape guide me. When I started these drawings, the almond and teardrop shape would always repeat. For me these vaginal designs represent a constant rebirth of myself. I look to it as a symbol of strength and continued force. If a circle is infinite and women will never cease to create, then for me, this represents ultimate power and inner strength.
These are me and I am them.