Seeing Red is an installation of mixed media photographic collages that incorporates fashion photographs, newspaper articles, ink drawings, and various household materials. Using luxury fashion advertising as a lens for broader cultural critique, the project disrupts the cycle of visual violence performed against women by forcing mediated fictions and realities into a new vision as graphic and uncomfortable confrontations, ultimately enacting a fantasy in which patriarchal power is subverted.
Through physical cutting and manipulation, Seeing Red addresses the perpetuation of rape culture and domestic violence by visually severing the connection between pleasure and violence through four creative strategies: (1) by repositioning the bodies to create new meaning; (2) dismantling male faces to negate their power; (3) drawing uncomfortable associations between the harmful, normalizing world of fashion with news stories of sexual violence; and (4) blocking the merchandise to prioritize the violent narrative.
The reimagined figures are stabilized with tape and often placed onto a black background, which represents a stage to transform the misogynistic narrative into an empowering one that favors women. Collages are photographed in a studio - to reference the world of mass production - and printed at human scale.
Remembering employs confessional performance to consider sexual trauma from an interior and psychological perspective. Through a simultaneously soothing and painful ritual, the viewer can observe the stages of recovery from denial to acceptance and healing.
The project is a multi-channel installation with sound and sheer textiles. The arrangement of the installation takes on the form of a maze to mirror the complexities of the human mind as it navigates grief, trauma, and recovery; around each corner, a new set of monitors can be seen.
[*Please visit my Vimeo showcase to access the full list of performance videos or click through the documentation image of interest for the corresponding video.]
FEBRUARY - APRIL 2019
Modern Prayer critiques playfully the idea that our self-validation and existential needs, in the past fulfilled by religious means, have transferred to and been replaced by our smartphones and social media.
It is the first thing we do in the morning and the last thing we do at night.
My objective is to make a parallel between the traditional prayer ritual to our more modern phone ritual through observation of human behavior in public spaces.
SEPTEMBER - DECEMBER 2018
There is something comforting and nostalgic about the disarray of these scenes that I cannot look away from; there is a connection to the loneliness I experienced as a child.
My childhood home was in a perpetual state of construction, so I’ve always been challenged to find focus amongst the chaos. Stability among what is unstable. There is a parallel in these images through season changes. The green leaves contrasted against snow function as a metaphor for my life outlook during these early childhood years.
JANUARY - JUNE 2019
As an adult, I reflect back on the loneliness I felt as child in this nostalgic but eerie series. Drama is created through the tension between, for example, the deflated child's dolphin toy and the unusual playground environment consisting of plywood and machinery.
MAY - SEPTEMBER 2018
As I gaze deeper into the mechanical, mundane procession of daily commuters. Everyone is on autopilot, shuffling to his or her arduous workday. While their bodies have memorized the motions, there is less discipline for the mind. Their expressions reveal interior dissonance, angst, and confusion. When I’m shooting, some people notice my study and look at me or strike up conversation, while others are so deep in their own worlds they do not notice my presence.
OCTOBER - DECEMBER 2017
