My most current body of work consists of temporal dirt and sand installations that make socio-political commentaries on the economic stability of American domestic environments by replicating patterns that are typically found in textiles within our homes.  There is an illusion of sustainability, prospect of wealth, and stability of home represented in the trompe l’oeil installations of painted mud wallpaper, printed dirt and printed sand rugs.  These illusions of grandeur provide an artificial hope to attain the American dream. 

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Through the printing process of the dirt, the rug has become molecular in structure and incapable of holding a permanent arrangement.  This transformation of the woven rug object into a particle-based print destroys and inverts the original connotations of wealth associated with the historical rug object.  The painted mud on the walls is arranged to give the illusion of wallpaper.  The walls, instead of representing stability are unwelcoming, fragile, dirty, and rough.  The mud, as it dries, turns into solidified dirt and beckons to the adages – poor as dirt and low as dirt.  This encroachment of the dirt onto the walls begins to wrap the gallery with the associated connotations of dirt in a wallpaper-like pattern giving the illusion of structure and permanence, but is instead temporary; the dirt will crack off the wall or if touched with moisture it will return to muddy water.

 

This idea is further explored in the temporality and explicit decoration within the Collaborative work with Catherine Armbrust.  In this work, we used vibrant sand, glitter, plastic, and latex. Here overt decoration hides and re-manufactures an illusion of wealth and opulent pop culture thus creating a world of fantasy and illusion which is oblivious to reality.  Or is this reality? 

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Most recently Armbrust and I have begun exploring topics related to our fresh water resources.  We are aiming to build awareness about issues of supply and demand within our own domestic borders.  In Transitory Boundaries we created an environment that surrounds the viewer in an artificial lake restrained by a grid.  The controlled patterning, representative of mans attempted control of natural forces contains the fabric lake forcing it in the prescribed square boundary that perfectly fits within the walls of the gallery. Within this space there is little room for all viewers to be immersed within the water thus plunging the viewer into a metaphorical struggle of supply and demand. 

The fluctuating surface levels of Lake Mead inspired Lake Mead 1984 and 2015. This multi-year drought is visualized through the digital printing on cotton.  In Lake Mead 1984, the buoyant blue takes over the composition creating bloated waterways that segment the landmasses.  In contrast to Lake Mead 2015, the desiccated brown landmasses forcefully separate the water.  Each image of Lake Mead is reflected and repeated creating a rhythmic blue and brown pulse symbolic of the fragile and overspent waterways that humanity depends on.