Artist Statement

To clear my head, I go on walks. Rarely looking up to admire what's around me, my eyes are drawn to the ground in my fascination with scraps, trash, and objects out-of-place. Beautifully re-contextualized and stripped of prior significance, I will photograph or collect discarded packaging, handwritten shopping lists, and cigarette packs. Based purely in conjecture, scraps and trash offer small, fragmented, intimate insights into people's lives. My love for trash is objectively odd, but I find so much visual and conceptual beauty in what and where someone chose to discard these now out-of-place objects.

Naturally, I concentrate in paper collage— a scrap-based medium of re-contextualization and fragmented visual storytelling. My collages, prints, and graphic designs are all inspired by the beauty I find in out-of-place and relocated objects. Recognizable logos, typography, and juxtaposing images within my artworks aim for personal resonance with open-ended meaning. Imagery and typography in my artwork read as both functional tools and aesthetic forms — sometimes clear in meaning, sometimes with no meaning intended.

Balancing meaningful narrative and the absurd is central to my practice; layers of text and imagery may seem absurd surface level, but are often visual reflections of deeply personal memories or extensively researched, collective histories. The room for conjecture I allow myself when admiring scraps and trash, I offer to viewers of my artwork. I encourage viewers to bring their own biases, identities, narratives, and desires for meaning to the artwork I produce.