I was born in Hawaii, moved to New Mexico as a child, and spent the summers of my youth in Vermont. Growing up in such vastly different places led to an appreciation of the diversity of life and the inherent beauty in the balance necessary to maintain an ecosystem. I was born to parents of different races. Like the geographic diversity I witnessed growing up, the heterogeneity in my cultural experience had a profound effect on my thinking about the world and my place in it. My childhood experiences led me to formally explore the importance of diversity through both anthropology and visual art. I sought to understand human diversity through my doctoral work; my visual work aims to instill an appreciation and even awe for this diversity in others as well as in our surroundings.
My current series of bird skins builds on these themes. It draws on my interests in our attitudes toward the natural world and how those attitudes dictate our interactions with it, as well as my interest in the human capacity for empathy. For me, these interests are all linked, and together they inform my bird prints. I was recently invited to view a vast museum collection of bird skins, and was at once delighted and saddened; the birds were so beautiful up close, but it was heartbreaking to see them lifeless on a table, existing as mere objects. I meditate on these strong opposing emotions as I make these images. With this work, I ask the viewer to contemplate the value of these animals and the ways our actions affect their ability to survive and thrive.
Serigraphy, 12.5”x18”, 2019, $395
Serigraphy, 12.5”x18”, 2019, $325
Serigraphy, 12.5”x18”, 2019, $125
Serigraphy, 12.5”x18”, 2019, $325
Serigraphy, 12.5”x18”, 2019
Serigraphy, 12.5”x18”, 2019
Serigraphy, 12.5”x18”, 2019, $125
Serigraphy, 12.5”x9”, 2019, $115
Serigraphy, 12.5”x9”, 2019, $225
Serigraphy, 12.5”x9”, 2019
Serigraphy, 12.5”x18”, 2019, $325
Serigraphy, 12.5”x18”, 2021, $125
Serigraphy, 12.5”x18”, 2019, $125
Serigraphy, 12.5”x18”, 2019
Serigraphy, 12.5”x9”, 2019
Serigraphy, 12.5”x9”, 2019
Serigraphy, 12.5”x9”, 2019
Serigraphy, 12.5”x9”, 2019
Serigraphy, 12.5”x9”, 2019
Serigraphy, 11”x11”, 2020
Serigraphy, 12.5”x19”, 2022, $400
Like us, rats are intelligent social creatures capable of empathetic and selfless behaviors; in psychological experiments, they sacrifice highly-valued rewards to allay the fear and suffering of their fellow rat. However, despite their similarity to us, we despise them and see them as symbols of fear and disdain.
Our negative attitudes towards rats parallel our feelings for one another. Everything we have done to rats, we have also done to each other – from genocide/extermination to vilification and experimentation to sterilization – we’ve mistreated people just as we’ve mistreated rats.
Many of the most powerful images from the past 2,000 years are of religious scenes about love and sacrifice. In this work, I replace religious figures and devotees with rats to produce an incongruity between these ultimate symbols of love and a symbol of disgust and hatred to underscore the fact that this love we feel toward others is not universally applied. With this work, I ask the viewer to reflect on the similarities between us and rats and to use them to understand what we value and revile in one another.
Serigraphy, 22”x34”, 2018, $1800
Serigraphy, 20"x26", 2019, $800
Serigraphy with Ink, 18.5”x14”, 2018, $750
Serigraphy, 22”x29”, 2018, $1800
Serigraphy, 18.5”x14”, 2018, $150
Serigraphy with gold leaf, 15"x21", 2017, $1800 (Sold)
Serigraphy, 15"x21", 2018, $600
Serigraphy with gold leaf, 15”x21”, $600
Serigraph, 22”x29”, 2018, $1200
Serigraphy, 11”x14”, 2018, $100
Serigraphy, 22”x14”, 2018, $200
Serigraph with Ink, 15”x21”, 2018, $800
Serigraphy, 11”x14”, 2018, $100
Serigraphy, 4.5"x7", 2017, $100
Serigraphy, 11”x14”, 2018, $100
Serigraphy, 22”x29”, 2018, $600
22”x14”, Serigraph, 2018, $480
I have long been interested in the role that rats play in our lives. They have lived alongside and parallel to us for tens of thousands of years, bordering the line between wild and domesticated. Like us, they easily adapt to ecological shifts and their psyche was shaped by a social environment. This shared evolution has provided us with a model for psychological and biological experiments.
Rat kings are a (possibly cryptozoological) phenomenon in which two or more rats’ tails become tangled, irreversibly attaching the rats to each other. For me, the rat king has not only visual interest, but metaphorical meaning. The metaphor works for the bond rats form with each other but also for the bond they form with us. Rats are social creatures, and form powerful, meaningful attachments to each other. Through our actions – our built environments, our food production systems, our laboratory experiments – we have forged a strong, and permanent bond with them.
An added layer of my interest in rat kings for me is the debate as to whether they occur in nature, or are part of the genre of cryptozoology, meaning the few recorded instances are the result of human hoaxes. Whether real or hoax, the interest in rat kings serves as another testament to a human conception of the natural world, and our interference with it.
24" x 35.5" etching/screenprint on paper, 2016, $1400 (Sold)
24" x 35.5" etching/screenprint on paper, 2016, $1400 (Sold)
12" x 9" etching/screenprint on paper, 2016 (Sold)
12" x 4" etching/screenprint on paper, 2016
22" x 30" screenprint on paper, 2016
22" x 15" screenprint on paper, 2016
10”x10” Serigraphy 2018
22" x 15" screenprint on paper, 2016
9" x 22" screenprint on paper, 2016
I feel a palpable isolation from the natural world. I believe I share this sense of isolation with many people in post-industrialized societies. We no longer have an authentic interaction with nature. Instead, we find ways to bring it safely into our lives with manicured parks, lawns and potted plants. This nature is contained, controlled, and separated from the rest of our environment, and we have come to accept this clinical interaction as authentic. Much of the vegetation we unintentionally encounter has been completely transformed; it is prepackaged, processed and unrecognizable, and appears in the form of strange objects like junk mail. Junk mail is abundant and ubiquitous yet completely unnecessary. I find this form of nature particularly interesting because it is the ultimate symbol of consumption – vast amounts of plant life is consumed to produce it, and it is produced to promote the consumption of other goods. I, like many people, throw it away or recycle it immediately without looking at it. In this work, I “recycle” my junk mail by transforming back into a plant-like form, then I place it in soil like a houseplant – the form of nature I most regularly encounter. As I make the plants, I contemplate the act of throwing away my junk mail as a metaphor for the discarding of nature via the production of junk mail itself.
13" x 19" Archival inkjet print, 2008, $500
13" x 19" Archival inkjet print, 2008, $500
13" x 19" Archival inkjet print, 2008, $500
13" x 19" Archival inkjet print, 2008, $500
13" x 19" Archival inkjet print, 2008, $500
13" x 19" Archival inkjet print, 2008, $500
13" x 19" Archival inkjet print, 2008, $500
13" x 19" Archival inkjet print, 2008, $500
13" x 19" Archival inkjet print, 2008, $500
13" x 19" Archival inkjet print, 2008, $500
13" x 19" Archival inkjet print, 2009, $500
13" x 19" Archival inkjet print, 2009, $500
13" x 19" Archival inkjet print, 2014
13" x 19" Archival inkjet print, 2014
13" x 19" Archival inkjet print, 2014
13" x 19" Archival inkjet print, 2014
13" x 19" Archival inkjet print, 2014
13" x 19" Archival inkjet print, 2014
13" x 19" Archival inkjet print, 2014
13" x 19" Archival inkjet print, 2013
13" x 19" Archival inkjet print, 2013
13" x 19" Archival inkjet print, 2014
13" x 19" Archival inkjet print, 2013
13" x 19" Archival inkjet print, 2013
13" x 19" Archival inkjet print, 2013
13" x 19" Archival inkjet print, 2014
13" x 19" Archival inkjet print, 2013
13" x 19" Archival inkjet print, 2013
I am obsessed with food. From industrial crop production to the mass production of food products, from nutritional content and labeling to food politics, and from advertising to consumption, I am an addict. I love the smell and taste of food, I love making and eating it, and I love unpacking a store-bought treat and indulging my cravings for sweetness. In this series, I turn toward food culture in the U.S. and the appeal of unhealthy foods.
Certain foods are commonplace in our lives, and have become part of us, part of our national identity. We see and expect to see them in grocery stores, vending machines, lunchboxes, family get-togethers and parties. Many such foods are unhealthy, and often, we either forget or downplay their drawbacks – consisting of empty calories; they are consumable object, rather than nourishment.
As a consumer of these ‘foods’, I understand their allure. Oddly appetizing and satisfying, these ‘foods’ appeal to that which we have evolved to crave: sweet, compact, dense sources of calories. Like so many others, I crave and lust for these ‘foods’, they tempt and seduce me, and I indulge myself, gluttonously and insatiably.
20”x30” Archival inkjet print, 2011 $500
Archival inkjet print, 2011
Archival inkjet print, 2011
Archival inkjet print, 2011