Statement

Through my committed investigation into subject construction, my work explores the vast psychical terrain of subjective experience.  Common, ubiquitous materials and mundane objects are deployed and assembled in drawings and installations that beg to be scrutinized and deciphered.  They are the result of my exploration of femininity and desire within the domestic, architectural space and, as such, they oscillate between the visible and the invisible, presence–absence, inside–outside, passive–active, masculine–feminine, subject–object. Personal history and experience propel the work and fuel my process.  The work reveals the lived experience as a construction and holds a mirror to its own process, reflecting singularity through the multiplicity of the generic and the mass-produced. 

My thesis exhibition, Double Negatives (a room construction comprised of cut and carved drywall and wood studs), takes its cue from the grammatical use of the double negative in which two forms of negation are used in the same clause.  When used informally it intensifies a negative meaning.  When used in formal language the two negatives cancel each other out and create a positive meaning.  For Double Negatives, everyday objects from my home and studio were chosen and then drawn and carved into drywall tiles of varying sizes which are then assembled to form an 8’ x 9’ wall in the room.  Both the object and its drywall surrogate speak to the operation of the double negative, intensifying absence (of the original object) and making present through absence (the removal of drywall material).  The displaced material was collected and now forms two linear mounds atop the scraps of drywall used to construct the rest of the space.  This refers directly to Michael Heizer’s 1969 earthwork similarly titled Double Negative (two trenches totaling 1500 feet in length and dug 50 feet deep into the earth) and solidly addresses the notion of masculine and feminine; the very large earthwork versus the feminized domestic space.  Double Negatives encapsulates the many ideas that are consistent throughout my work—it indexes or makes present through absence, speaks to femininity in masculine terms and explores the personal and subjective by almost completely eradicating any trace of it.