Artist statement

My art practice encompasses sculpture, installation, photography, performance art, drawing and writing. My illustrations tend to be narrative and symbolic in nature. My three-dimensional and time-based works play with abstraction to address form and formlessness. All my art is heavily concept-driven. Ideation and creation go hand-in-hand to discuss the self and our relationship with others, the Earth and the observable universe.

My sculpture and installation work tends to use cheap, banal materials oftentimes discarded on the side of the road such as broken auto glass, plastic bags, caution tape and red cord. The abundance of these materials contribute to the clotting of waterways and poisoning of the land in landfills. I upcycle these materials for resourcefulness and to clean up the Earth. The challenge I encounter when creating with these materials that people avoid is to simulate beauty. I transform trash into appealingly symmetrical forms to elevate the material, giving aesthetic form and meaning to the refuse, deriving inspiration from the Arte Povera and Post-Minimalism art movements. The three-dimensional forms evoke macrocosms and microcosms of universal properties and processes such as sacred geometry and planetary accretion. Abstraction and representation are both used to communicate a reverence towards nature, physics, and their plethora of unanticipated forms, exhibiting a running theme of the cycle of destruction and creation. Spacial quirks forged from repetitive processes pay homage to the All, the gestalt of multifold iterations. 

In time-based media such as photography and performance, I investigate rituals, rebirth, and spontaneity. In my Relativity series, I shake the camera in a wild motion while holding down the shutter button in front of lights to capture bokeh smears and crisp lines. When I post these photos on digital platforms that utilize swiping, the viewer interaction simulates motion and abstraction. In essence, I take a form that emits light and change the dimensionality of its formless luminosity. The capricious nature of light synchronizes with random action. The result is an invigorating distillation of line, the first dimension. Segueing to the fourth dimension of time, time and place propels my performance art. In a past performance I’ve scrutinized how people reveal information in private and public settings through a long, repetitive ritual. I’ve also inserted myself into other performance artists’ public performances with idiosyncratic interactions, playfully participating in their art. An autobiographical performance where I birth myself on my own terms from a giant plastic uterus is currently being conceived. Identity and its manifestation play key roles. I see action as a defining factor of how people are perceived. The finite window of making an impression makes the difference between awkwardness and charisma. Time, a human construct, constructs the human. Ad infinitum? Maybe not, as long as humans perpetuate changes that contribute to the conclusion of the Anthropocene epoch. 

Unless a colossal paradigm shift pushing environmental preservation efforts happens, humanity will be left to perish. To address this existential problem, I envision different ways humanity can be saved in my illustration and stories. I find illustration and narrative to be the clearest, least ambiguous way to communicate hope for humanity, particularly the sci fi genre. My illustration and prose also approach mental illness to foster empathy, destigmatizing the misunderstood. An illustration and a long caption are presented in an entertaining way utilizing semiotic themes of creature mythology, spirituality, mortality, mental illness, and power dynamics to address problems in our society and imply solutions to them.

Making art with awareness of a looming global crisis is contingent on the upkeep of personal sanity. My art started as therapy, a sublimation of the struggle with internal demons. However, due to the dynamism of identity and the human condition, I changed my art making from emotional impetus to an exploratory leap into cultural matters. My desire to express an intent to subvert problematic patterns like the complacency of climate change and pollution, rape culture, transphobia, and racism comes from my own experiences in dealing with them. Some of my pieces take on an activist role. Existential angst is now a vehicle for a political message, to communicate a yearning for a better world.

Simultaneously, my art is a euphoric compliment to the phenomenon of life in the vast emptiness of space, a scathing criticism of how we live, and an inquiry about our plane of existence. Is there something more or is this all there is? Is art’s capacity to explain the why’s of existence limited or expanding? The versatile usage of different media is applied to transcend humble mechanisms. The mark, the material, and the line spark truthful, inquisitive dialogue. This speaks allegorically of how small we are in this universe, yet how special and impactful our actions are. My duty as a creator is to catalyze human evolution in terms of empathy along with self-growth. A modus operandi of endless conceptualization to fabricate and facilitate constructive change: creativity with a purpose.