Statement: 

Through painting, metalwork, and alchemical processes, I create psychological landscapes that contrast weathered man-made structures and natural elements. Contextualized by Freud's metaphor of an underground city, the work doubles as a depiction of the psyche’s unconscious internal states and rustbelt cities which hold the history of economic decline and deindustrialization. 

The process of making rust-dye impressions on canvas entails materializing the uncanny by using three-dimensional found objects to create a repressed form of its perceived totality. The found metal objects used for rust-dye impressions anchor the work to the real world, whereas painted imagery is symbolic, symmetrical  – the houses have no entryway and the vines lack roots. 

Drawing from the Surrealism movement, specifically the women artists marginalized from the patriarchal systems, I use my practice as a tool to gain agency within my own experiences. Taking from the Surrealist idea of “chance,” I use found objects and symbolism to create my own visual language.