In her own world
*statement follows, below work.
This body of work began in the fall of 2022 and is ongoing. Please get in touch if you’d like to exhibit or collect.
The use of window screen is conceptually and materially based; The visual effect of layering screens recalls childhood memories of staring out the window and letting the outside world blur as I spaced out, a frequent occurrence for my then undiagnosed neurodivergent brain. I remember moving my head from side to side to watch the exterior light and color shift slightly, the screen creating a visual whir as I swayed. There were certain windows and views, colors I sought out to regulate. I am easily distracted, inattentive, and seek visual stimulation throughout the day, finding reflections, and layered imagery in my every day surroundings to momentarily consider or ponder, to keep my brain busy. In discovering my AuDHD neurodivergence in my 40’s, I am looking at my childhood tendencies and how and where they still apply to my adult life, especially in my practice, seeing from a new perspective with new information about myself. What we see depends on our viewpoint, what barriers are present, and our individual ability to move and shift and be flexible to see more or differently. These pieces change slightly as you move around them, reflecting your movement through a color shift and light.
Some of this work is narrative and representational, recalling my childhood spaces where I often played alone in nature, losing myself in deep immersive imaginative play that often involved collecting and setting up. These pieces are multilayered and the screens can be lifted to reveal different views. The obscuring of the image is intentional, the screen playing the role of memory and time and barriers that prevent us from seeing situations, and ourselves, clearly. This is an ongoing body of work painted on felt covered bulletin boards.
Other pieces are abstract, geometric, or only hint at imagery. There is a formal inquiry into color, transparency, and texture, while using informal materials that are more domestic in nature-window screen and felt. These abstract pieces also reference how I process my world visually. When I am walking through the world, living my life, my brain is constantly distracted by moments of color that I wish I could physically collect and move to a different place to make a different color composition in real time. I used to obsessively photograph colors and textures that attracted me in my urban environment, but I stopped when I became a parent and lost my agency to move through the world unencumbered. The use of screens to create surprising layered colors and moiré effect have offered me a similar process as I make and collect screens to pair with just the right image or other colors.
This work moved beyond the wall in the spring of 2023 with temporary outdoor installations created in several locations that held meaning for me as a child and as an adult. After activation and deinstallation, the screens were then cut up for the latest group of work that can be seen in my Smalls page.