This series, using absurdism and subversion, is drawn from my personal experience of navigating a fluid identity throughout a long-term partnership with my husband, Jordan, and his portrait. Historically, portraits of men feature their identity and occupation or societal role at the forefront; contrarily, women are frequently transformed into motifs, allegories, and symbols, and their roles subsumed by their use as “inspiration.” The works speculate and critique the canonical art history into a critique of current media culture, which pushes blind acceptance of constructed boxes of desire, offering caricatures of love, gender, and sexuality. Hybrid portraits announce the blurred lines between sense of self and our constructed identities in relation to our partner, and question the persistent belief that a glimpse contains an uncontaminated truth or that a portrait captures the essence of a person. I use exaggeration to suggest our collective buy-in to romantic narratives pushed upon us, and highlight the collective socialization of desire by asking “what are the risks of desire being rooted in speculation and projection?”
Who doesn't love a pretty, dead, woman above their couch? Personally, I like to listen to true crime podcasts while I work. (After Ophelia/For all the women whose murders we aestheticize and those they try to erase, Elizabeth Siddall, Loretta Capot-Blanc, Rita Hester and Sandra Bland).
Oil on fabric wrapped upholstery foam, wig, toy flies, fake lily pads and yarn
6.5 FT x 5 FT x 4 IN
2020
*Made in-residence at Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute Artist-In-Residence in Painting & Drawing Program
Oil on towel wrapped upholstery foam, sequined fabric, paper clay, latex paint, cinnamon scented oil, cinnamon sticks yarn, rhinestones, bath curtain, nail polish
7 FT x 5.5 FT x 3.5 FT
2020
*Made in-residence at Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute Artist-In-Residence in Painting & Drawing Program
Sequins on fabric wrapped upholstery foam, thread, yarn, fabric, and plastic leaves
6.5 FT x 5.5 FT x 4.5 FT
2020
*Made in-residence at Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute Artist-In-Residence in Painting & Drawing Program
Oil, upholstery foam, fabric, canvas, plasticine clay, hat, thread and streamers
6 FT x 3.5 FT x 2.5 FT
2018
Oil on fabric wrapped upholstery foam, vacuum-sealed Soylent, hoodie, sequins, crochet, thread, beads, foam bubbles, plaster and silicone.
2019
Oil pastel on fabric and crochet wrapped upholstery foam, pipe cleaners, plaster, silicone and yarn.
2019
Call up your factory-cum-utopia daddy and deputize any hot guy you think can handle his weapon. Don’t worry their trained discretion will “protect” anything you didn’t agree to. Our gilded hands build a romanticized frame for their spectacle. Police strippers obscure more than just their vulnerables.
Fabric wrapped upholstery foam, beads, gouache paint, wood, plexi, yarn, latch hook grid, dish glove, pleather, boa and turn-table (which slowly rotates the stick horse and dish glove around in circles next to the portrait).
8 FT 4 IN x 6 FT 6 IN x 10 IN
"A 2015 investigation by the Buffalo News, based on a national review of media reports and court records over a 10-year period, concluded that an officer is accused of an act of sexual misconduct at least every five days."
-The Washington Post
“One woman’s police protector is another woman’s perpetrator. According to the National Center for Women in Policing, two studies have found that at least 40% of police officer families experience domestic violence. In contrast, to 10% of families in the general population.”
-Becoming Abolitionists: Police, Protests, and The Pursuit of Freedom by Derecka Purnell
100% of the proceeds from the purchase of this artwork will be donated to: https://survivedandpunished.org/about/ and http://criticalresistance.org/about/
Oil, upholstery foam, fabric, canvas, thread, shirt, costume chest, wood and fans.
4 FT x 3 FT x 1 FT
2018
Oil on fabric and knit wrapped upholstery foam, yarn, string, push pins
22 IN x 17 IN x 6 IN
2016
Oil on canvas and fabric wrapped upholstery foam, yarn, plastic cording, wall, oil pastel
Approx. 50 IN x 17 IN x 6 IN
2016
Oil on canvas and velvet wrapped upholstery foam, plastalina, yarn, reed
Dimensions variable
2016
Oil on fabric and crochet wrapped upholstery foam, yarn, thread, fiberfill, sequins, beads, wire, styrofoam wig head, galvanized pipe, high heels and plastalina clay
6 FT x 3 FT x 1.5 FT
2017