Portfolio
Artist Book: Bird-Body, a revenge fantasy.
I've always hated birds. I found two birds badly decomposing and was fascinated. Even gleeful. Created for a figure painting class, this book addresses what it means to inhabit a body. These images are from live model studies, studies of specimens from the biology lab, and my own findings of mutilated birds, in attempts to investigate what it means to inhabit my body and paint the bodies I hate most-- birds-bodies.
Cyclical Coagulation
Exploring the theme of what traces the body leaves behind, I thought about depicting graphic images of my period blood on toilet paper. In collaboration with colleague Ali Mackie, we were drawn to the uncomfortable associations with blood and menstrual blood specifically. Displaying the two paintings in the men's and women's bathrooms forced viewers to wrestle with this uncomfortableness.
Fine
"Usable"
Using plastic bags, I’ve created three-dimensional sculptures of labia. These pieces highlight the frequent discarding and commodification of women's bodies. The pins securing the plastic to the cardboard backing create specimens out of the genitals. This generates a sterile or medical distance between the viewer and the objects, further commenting on the objectification of this anatomy. Text from reusable plastic bags are pinned beneath each vagina, poignantly undercutting this tension with humorous language like “designed for 125 uses.” Interrogating society’s misuse of women by drawing a parallel between our bodies and single-use plastics, these pieces are intended to raise questions in viewers and leave them feeling disturbed.
