Statement

Constructed from the remnants of campfires my recent work explores the space between collapse and formation. Remembered landscapes, imagined futures, and the anxiety of the contemporary condition inform the images which present the power and paradoxical hope of the wiped out, smudged, erased and rebuilt. On my frequent camping trips fires are necessary for cooking and warmth. Each morning I shovel the contents of the cold pit into a bucket to bring back to Queens as drawing materials - reactivating a force that is know for it’s ability to nurture and destroy. Some drawings are massive, as physically demanding and immersive as sleeping outside, others are smaller, more intimate haptic engagements. Beginning in March 2020, when we were being conditioned to embrace distance and be weary of proximity, I began to see the smudges and fingerprints left in the soot as celebrations of the haptic, that which can touch and be touched. During this time, gestures of protection and prevention consumed every moment and so I began making frames to house the fragile drawings. Standing over the same fire pit that the drawing materials came from I heavily char branches and strips of wood. I wrangle these compromised objects, drastically different than what they once were, into objects of protection and the seemingly broken becomes the impetus for new ideas and objects. This transformation creates space for hope and regeneration within the collapse that surrounds us.