ARTWORK

Artwork

East Bank Athletic Club

Abandoned properties are often both created by communities for social good and then collectively discarded when their purpose is no longer desired. Once the Indiana and Michigan Electric Company and later adapted into the East Bank Athletic Club; the Commerce Center basement is a marker of South Bend’s history, social needs, and goals for the past century. My work responds to the progression of time within this history.

Prescriptive Space

Prescriptive Space is a temporary public installation of ceramic figures on divided city benches designed to prohibit people experiencing homelessness from sleeping. The bisections of the figures not only highlight the handrails but also contain information related to Gainesville’s history of public policy and movement of marginalized people. My work seeks to make visible the politics of urban design and invites the community to reconsider our use of participation in public space. Installation performance exists as video documentation of interactions between the ceramic figures and the public at three city benches, capturing moments of discovery, discussion, humor, aggression, and compassion.

Bo Diddley Plaza

Bo Diddley Plaza is documentation of a seated figure installed by the Plaza bus stop. This location is considered a throughway and therefore it is not confined to closing hours. As a result, a large number of people experiencing homelessness congregate and sleep in this space. Gainesville’s redevelopment plans of Bo Diddley Plaza remove the bus stop and reallocate the space, which removes and reallocates the presence of homelessness to another area. My sculpture occupied this space until the City workers physically removed it.

2724 W. Armitage Ave. Chicago, IL

I create life-size figurative work that are placed in public spaces to politicize that space, the institutions that govern it, and how the public interacts within it.

Reconstruction

Reconstruction is a video and ceramic installation of me casting my mother’s feet while interviewing her about her experience as a child, wife, and mother. This piece explores the construction of self, the formation of one’s identity though social roles, and the progression of thought through generations.

The Brian Center

The Brian center for nursing care series documents institutional living for the elderly in spruce Pine, North Carolina. The series explores the ways in which the people are represented within their compartmentalized and singular environments. The object around them represent their histories, and what objects speak more to placating their current status.

Home Is Where The Heart Is

I am inspired by my urban environment to create interventionist ceramic sculptures that are installed on boarded buildings in areas I have lived. My sculptures become the breathing mechanism when the building cannot on its own. The figures are a personification of the buildings to which they are installed on. These pieces are designed to reflect analogous examples of commensal relationships and are created with particular consideration to the buildings' architectural accents, and social histories. I am interested in articulating the scars these histories have subjected each building to. Through the adornment the buildings will be nurtured to atone for the City's wrongs. These sites are catalysts for dialogue on the issues of gentrification and the reconstruction of a failing city and state economy in both private and public sectors.

Gainesville, FL

As means of better understanding my neighbors in the city in which I have been transplanted into, I will go on a dérive (a pathless journey) throughout Gainesville, FL. I walked and biked through the down town and residential areas asking people to write a message to god on the sidewalk. This can be a question, a comment, a picture, or an undecipherable mark. It is up to you. My path will continue for as long as you want to share your stories and thoughts.