Absence

 

The ongoing series Absence investigates longing, presence, and absence. Perspectives on traumatic historical events, current environmental concerns, and my fascination with interpersonal relationships are explored through drawing, painting, paper, and stitched textile collage.

 

Archive of Specimens documents my impulse to collect, hold, cherish, and imbue objects with meaning and identity. Safekept items from nature such as seed pods, nuts, and shells are rendered in pencil on paper and in thread on fabric. Cut out and stitched to backgrounds not-their-own creates a series of mismatched solids and voids. This act of study, record, and muddle expresses fear and inevitability of data, memory, and environmental loss.

 

In Object Permanence, domestic paraphernalia and intergenerational memories are illustrated on a two-sided drawing. Rendered hand-me-down chairs have been surgically sliced out of side a and stitched to side b interrupting and prompting the viewer to read a history from multiple points of view. Visual dissonance is coupled with sensitive marks and washes of color conjuring up the complexity of family dynamics. 

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Snippets of textiles saved from my dining room and kitchen form Fond Memories of Good Company documenting a communal life of cooking and eating with others.  Embroidered outlines of kitchen implements and stenciled china patterns recall women’s histories of domestic labor.