Artist's Statement 

As a small child, I would slam my head against the ground. I didn’t do this because I was upset; I did it because I didn’t know where I was. I was lost, trying to cope, yet being unable to reconcile the space where my body ended and the world began. Being born with both sensory integration disorder and dysgraphia has affected my ability to interpret visual and spatial information. As I grew, this confusion dissipated, but my difficulties with fine motor and cognitive processes remained. Struggling to form letters, draw neat lines, create uniform shapes, and organize objects has led me to abstraction as a mode of expression. Composing a visual language of repeated forms, I process and embody my experience as a neurodivergent individual, infusing personal narrative through charged symbols and stylized figures in turbulent abstract landscapes.

 

Working mostly in black and white, I focus on the material qualities of each piece by allowing the interplay of these two colors to reinforce key concepts and instill meaning. 

Using a neutral palette that incorporates light and shadow along with simple forms and contrast, I bring out the materiality of my surfaces by allowing their inherent qualities to become core parts of the work itself. Finding balance between the extremes present in each piece, I form and re-form my work in a dynamic process of making and unmaking. Composing spaces with gestures and layered remnants, I create transitory scenes that reference the ephemeral aspects of painting and my own bodily dysfunction. 

 

My figures introduce an element of humor and play into the serious realities of my anxiety, depression, and cognitive challenges. Part self portrait and part fictional character, the little guys exist in a liminal space of physical and emotional uncertainty. Stemming from my neurological conditions, their childlike forms and individuality speak to my limitations with fine-motor skills and difficulties with spatial reasoning. Through their rapid and repeated spawning, I question and explore complex feelings using abstract visual narratives that deal with my own neurodiversity, emotional vulnerability, and childhood trauma.