Gluttony, greed, and beauty to the point of suffocation are all ideas that interest me. I work with excess and amassing to create densely ornamental pieces that have the potential to create visual pleasure to the point of discomfort. Through the act of collage I try to reach a critical mass of color and pattern that forces the viewer to find a moment of reprieve.

 

I find that my work takes two different viewpoints. The extremely layered pieces work to negate beauty through excess. There is no hierarchy or focal point; they confront the viewer with a barrage of color, shape, pattern forcing the viewer to seek out a moment of reprieve. These works are about amassing, collecting, and dominion.  Consuming for consuming sake. I use nature as a source of abstraction, drawing from Kunsthammers, Ernst Haeckle specimen studies, still life paintings of Anne Vallayer-Coster, and the attitudes of the Age of Enlightenment.

 

I hand-cut intricate paper laces and build with a variety of media. My process is both obsessive and a gluttony of material.  The act of hand cutting these paper laces creates a sense of the couture and, hopefully, desire. It creates windows or passageways for the eye to move beyond what is in front, encouraging the viewer to navigate behind and into the painting.  Illuminating that it’s not the ‘stuff’ that is important and to bring into question what it is to ‘consume’.