Artist Statement
With representational and figurative work, there is a sense of surrealism that surrounds the audience. I explore taboo topics such as religion and womanhood through the consistent use of confrontation, life-size scales, animals, color interaction, and void spaces. I utilize pop culture, film, and female archetypes to criticize interpretations of the bible. By confronting the viewer, I encourage the viewer to investigate themselves, their morality, ethics, and belief systems.
The Monstrous Feminine starts in the womb. Film, pop culture, and everyday influence how we interact and view modern interpretations of outdated scripts. For the symbolism in my most recent work, I focus on showing religious aspects and a critique of interpretation. It provokes the viewer to investigate and ask questions, rhetorical or not. Through several archetypes of women, we see repeated and categorized in everyday life, I want to depict them in easily digestible visuals.
When working on this series it started with “Sacrificial Lamb”. People may view this person as a hero, a savior to a lamb that holds innocence. But the eerie lighting that follows the rest of the series begs to differ. One of the things that continue is the glaring
to the viewer, often a challenging stare from different women in languid poses. Each surrounding and interacting with animals or people with formidable outcomes. These range from the snakes of Eden and their promiscuity to the ever-devoted ram, even the malevolent leopard.
I use a very confrontational style with my series, using distinct brush strokes and simplification where there shouldn’t be tension following rendered areas to hold the viewer's attention. I enjoy the way colors interact and create vibration in a piece, leaning to very saturated underpaintings and then building my composition on top of that. I strike to provoke something that lacks in physicality but shocks the emotional side of us. Each of us has an objective experience, but the way we use it to judge, perceive, and generate opinions can hold a higher influence on us than we initially realize.