Artist Statement

My artistic practice incorporates a multi-pronged approach intersecting biography, environment, politics, and scientific research. Through sculpture, I materialize memory and data centered around our environmental crisis. Most recently, my work has explored the coal mining industry's effect on the planet. After living for over a decade in West Virginia, I needed to create art to dissect the poisonous man-made biome I lived in; one created by hundreds of years of mining the land, and subsequently creating its own culture centered around coal.

I am a process sculptor, not guided by a grand vision of what a piece is meant to be, but rather by conversing with my materials. I use steel as a support for other softer, found textiles. Their treatment often mimics the reality I am representing. For example, when working with paper, its sensitivity to my disruption paralleled the land. As I stained it with acid mine drainage, I mimicked how this substance has marked Appalachia. Through this, I found that with material language I can reevaluate and reinstrumentalize these disastrous conditions I and others live in, and show a form of survival and resilience. 

 I materialize distinct childhood memories through sculpture. The memories I choose highlight the circumstances of life–conditions we grew up in–whose haunting presence may not be recognized until adulthood. I also look into dense data sets. Inspired by what these numbers represent outside of the screen, I give this data physicality. 

In my art, I don’t hide the reality of the situation—too much denial already exists. Instead, I aim to show the persistence of everyday people through our reality.