about

CV

Instagram: @ratsarenotgross

Statement & Bio:

I am a conceptual artist and a scientist. Each of these practices offers a lens for understanding human behavior and the ways we construct ideas of place, identity, and belonging in relation to one another and to the living world.

I was born in Hawaii, grew up in New Mexico, and spent the summers of my youth in Vermont. Moving among distinct landscapes and cultures taught me to see both difference and connection, and to recognize how ecology, history, and memory intertwine. My work arises from a desire to understand the threads that bind life together and to question the systems that pull it apart.

Through sculpture, printmaking, and photography, I examine the complex relationships among people, plants, more-than-human animals, and landscapes. I am interested in how our increasingly controlled, human-centered environments shape our perception of the natural world, and how our growing estrangement from it, coupled with notions of human dominion, erode our capacity for empathy toward our earthly kin. We have learned to shape our environments with extraordinary precision. We curate and control the spaces we share with other beings, cultivating comfort and ease while simultaneously destroying ecosystems and driving countless species toward extinction.

At its heart, my practice is an act of attention and care. It is a meditation on empathy and coexistence. It is a reflection on our current state. It is an invitation to see ourselves as part of a living, interdependent world, and to imagine a future grounded in reciprocity, reverence, care, and kindness.

I hold a BFA in Studio Art and a PhD in Anthropology, and my work has been exhibited in galleries across the United States.