STATEMENT

I explore the role of the body in relation to power, violence and its place within various hierarchies. Materiality, visual languages, and symbolic forms become tools through which the human form can be manifested and interfaced. Contemplating the violence of objectification, my work examines the conceptions of passivity, activeness, submission and dominance. It considers the actions performed upon bodies when empathy is replaced with entitlement. These actions and their effects on the body express the tribulations of living without agency; of compressing one’s whole into a tool, a toy, a weapon, a concept, or simply matter.

My work is inspired by violences I’ve experienced as a result of existing within a specific body. I've come to understand that if cruelty is not based on a biological necessity, it must be due to the predator’s lack of compassion for their prey; an inability to recognize their humanness or to accept them as anything but an “other.” Laden with shame, horror, and satire, the works provoke, insult, and prod in order to allow the viewer to participate in the ubiquitous and inescapable experience of suffering as the simulated victim, perpetrator, and bystander. By fulfilling these roles, the viewer is forced to scrutinize their place in the hierarchy of violence; herein the path to empathy becomes clearer.

Amidst this era of sociopathic brutality and detachment, my objective is to eradicate the divide between the physical body and the conscious individual in an attempt to restore empathy and personal accountability. By unifying the physical, intellectual, and emotional human, I offer a means by which one can interpret violence - as a concept, a code, an experience, a tool, a symptom, and ultimately a flaw in the grander design of our society.