: : found gone : :
Gone too soon, 2019, 34" x 16" x 6"
My work in the ongoing series, Found/Gone, combines photography and encaustic medium inside reclaimed wooden drawers. The image transfers are largely fragmented self-portraits, captured in motion to reflect an overwhelming pace of each day presented compartmentalized, as life can be, and through the work a more revealed self emerges. The photographic process of capturing my own image in action fosters a connection between conscious, subconscious, and unconscious mind and emotions.
The path I travel as I make the work explores connections between home, mind, and body and incorporating found materials helps me feel grounded in what’s real and what exists outside of my head. The works traverse feelings explored while struggling to find place, meaning, purpose, and time. The drawers symbolize not just boxes I’m trying to fit into, but also once private places that are now revealed and put on display. Much of my work comes out of emotional divisiveness and being in demand by conflicting forces. The battle between yearning for one thing but doing something else is of great influence.
The influence of found materials in my work goes beyond structure as I contemplate their path before being cast-off. The drawers I work with are solid and worn, discovered on curbs of older houses appearing to be hauled from basements and attics, crafted seemingly in the 1940s-80s. The weight of the objects, the smell, texture, and age, create personalities that inspire my imagination to drift to social historical context of their time and the collision of past with present.
2018 - 2021
