I began to take art seriously in fifth grade when my mother brought home an Art History textbook from one of her classes, and I was instantly hooked- that book became a gateway to the sheer variety of human visual expression, across the world and across history. That was when I got the first inkling of how I wanted to fill my life- with beauty and creativity.
I owe so much to the great arts education that I have been lucky enough to receive. I attended a fantastic art program at East Carolina University for my undergraduate degree, and I had the honor of attending the New York Academy of Art for my MFA program. My undergraduate experience gave me the artistic foundations that I needed, but my grad school experience is what really helped me hone my craft and find my voice.
Currently, I am creating paintings on many layers of resin, a technique that I developed to compensate for my depth perception disorder. In the course of developing this resin technique, I found that I could include all sorts of materials and found objects, and this sparked a fascination for working with nontraditional materials.
I like to use materials that create specific visual effects, like glass, holographic pigment, and faceted crystal. I also try to incorporate materials that have emotional and historical resonances. These materials include antique tintype photographs, Victorian paper ephemera, and human hair. I want my materials list to read like a Surrealist short story, with inherent contradictions and glittering poetics. In the future, I hope to incorporate even more unique and emotionally laden materials and to do so in a way that pushes the limits of my multimedia resin painting technique in both scale and dimensionality.
I hope as you explore my work and journey you come to see me as your quirky friend who isn't afraid to give voice to the deep fears and desires inside of each of us.
A B O U T
Art is a positive force for many, and as a child, it was my lifeline.
I was artistic from the very beginning, and I was blessed to be born into an artistic family that never questioned my affinity for art.
I am neurodivergent, and as a child, I struggled with expressing myself due to dyslexia. In addition, I was also asthmatic, had disordered vision, and terrible dyspraxia that affected my coordination, so sports and physical play were limited. Art and creativity became my lifeline. I found my voice in drawing, painting, and storytelling. I was limited in so many aspects of life, but in art I found freedom.
Q and A
-
Because I think in symbols and it's the easiest way for me to communicate my deepest feelings and thoughts to others. Connection with other people is essential to me, but communication can be difficult because I am neurodivergent and sometimes shy. So art helps. That, and I love beauty, and creating beauty is a wonderful way to honor your time on this planet.
-
Three things:
Firstly, I am inspired by the rich tapestry of nature, I never cease to feel a humbled wonder at all the beautiful life that exists around us.
Secondly, I am inspired by the blood and heart ties of family and friends.
And last but never least, I am inspired by all of my fellow artists! They never cease to show me what hard work, dedication, imagination, and a teeny bit of confidence can do. -
I think that collecting and arranging are the very basis of art. Even if you are a minimalist, if you make art, you are collecting images, colors, qualities of light, expressions, and dreams and arranging them on a canvas, in a sculpture, or the frame of a photograph for a particular effect.
I have noticed that most artists are collectors of some sort- I think it comes with the territory of being deeply moved by aesthetics; you want to surround yourself with beauty all the time. And most artists are driven to manifest their internal world externally- what better way to do that than through carefully curating a beautiful environment for yourself? For me the act of collecting drives the creation of the work- I fall so deeply in love with certain objects that I want to use them as materials in my art! -
I became interested in resin during grad school. I was going to a very intense figurative painting program and I quickly realized that my paintings were suffering because I was painting with a handicap- I just could not achieve a believable sense of space in my work because I have a muscular eye disorder that makes depth perception very difficult. So I decided that if I couldn't paint the illusion of space, then I would physically create that depth using layers.
That's why I began using resin, but I quickly fell in love with it- the richness that it lends colors, the endless options for collage and mixed media inclusions, and the various surface treatments you can do to it mean that it is practically limitless as a medium. I am always trying to push what I can do with it- more layers, more three-dimensional elements, more everything! -
I have always wanted to do a huge installation project, something really immersive and interactive for viewers. I have also always dreamed of illustrating my own tarot deck.
-
I think the most important parts of my artistic growth have come slowly over time, as a consequence of living, maturing, and having a wide variety of experiences. I think that would be my biggest piece of advice to an aspiring artist; get out there and live life! It's only through the process of living life that you have something to paint about.
-
I would not want a superpower actually. If I had a superpower, I would feel very different and misunderstood by my fellow humans, so I would not enjoy it... on second thought, maybe I would want a superpower if that superpower was something that would allow me to be closer to people, something like "radical empathy"... that would probably be ok.