Artist Statement

My artwork is an exploration of the collision between the man-made and the natural world. Fascination with this fusion began while living in a large city, where on my walks, I would step over deer carcasses on the side of the road, witness coyotes crossing major highways, wildflower meadows reclaiming old parking lots and creeping vines that morph abandoned buildings into make shift mounds within months. This complete fusion of the man-made and natural world bled into my artwork. I began to fuse deceased animals and plants found on my walks with discarded technology. I dismantled computers, VCRs, toys, clocks and other technology left in dumpsters or at consignment stores, and merged them with the creatures I collected. In much the same way animals are dissected, parts from the man-made objects led me to search for glimpses into how they too were created. Gears reminded me of the sacred work going on beneath our own skin, tiny motors and wires moved like vessels pumping blood, type writer keys referenced the jointed appendages on the insects I found. Slowly I began reanimating the deceased animals much like Dr. Frankenstein in Mary Shelly’s famous book, Frankenstein. These creatures too took on a new form and became something different, unnatural even, but to my eyes, still beautiful. Much like our world today, a glimpse of what one day could, and would be, a reality.