Artist Statement

My interdisciplinary practice gives the emotional weight of memory a physical presence through forms that hold imperfections, repetitions, and erasures of familial and cultural histories. Complex narratives of memory and identity are at the center of my work grounded in my experience of duality, fluidity, and impermanence. My background in neuroscience and clinical research inform how I bring physicality to feelings, emotions, and sensations. I often utilize the contrast between the warmth of organic form with cold industrial materials to communicate these narratives. As a biracial and bicultural artist born in Germany and raised in the southern United States, adaptability and experimentation have become important elements in my practice. 

 

Architecture becomes the framework by which I explore the theme of memory. I use an intuitive approach to material selection in my work that is influenced by Brutalist architecture, the Bauhaus movement, and post-minimalism. Through processes of material transformation such as casting, chemically rusting, mending, and iteration, I ask viewers how objects and materials might carry memory in ways that parallel how the brain reconstructs it. My material transformation explores what it feels like when memories fade, transform, and disappear making them unreliable narrators of existence. I am drawn to the works of artists like Eva Hesse, Doris Salcedo, Rachel Whiteread, and Hugh Hayden for the ways their practices use mundane materials as a catalyst for deeper investigations. In my sculptures I translate these questions into physical, often heavy, forms that give life to reflection by retaining imperfections, distortions, and alterations to material objects. 

 

My investigation into the instability of memory includes neurological conditions like Alzheimer’s and social phenomena such as disinformation and politically motivated revision of tainted and violent histories. These inquiries are both personal and political to excavate forgotten recipes, rituals, and relationships at the center of personal and collective identity. I allow the material to evolve, remain imperfect, and embrace ephemerality as a mirror of the complex nature of my themes. Ultimately, the alchemical nature of my work offers an entry point for viewers to reflect on their own memories, identity, and the world around them.