Artist Statement
I create sculptures and installations that pose questions of residential land use, our connection to the environment, and our uncertain future. My research toward this inquiry centers how we locate ourselves within the increasingly built world, thereby inviting viewers to re-evaluate their perspective on these issues through a lens of criticality. Using the material language of U.S. housing construction such as plywood, polystyrene and paint as well as architectural model building details such as artificial turf and PLA filament, my populated tableaus prompt viewers to consider their impact on the landscape as an observer. By placing the spectator as an agent of change amidst a fraught setting, my intermedia practice challenges our relationship to home, landscape and place.
Scales, systems, and structures fascinate me. My process begins with on-site research into symbols of our collective imprint on the environment—from Levittown, NY, often recognized as the first American suburb, to Bratislava, Slovakia, home to the most communist-era prefabricated homes in Europe. I apply my findings toward the production of large-scale landscape installations and individual sculptural housing vignettes. In my large works, I etch digitally-sourced maps to produce petroglyph-like topographical landscape surfaces that visualize how sprawl might be observed hundreds of years from now. My individually-scaled sculptures of houses draw from scale model building and consumer culture to reference the aspirational dynamics of American home construction today.