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I have a deep interest in communication, interaction and language. I am particularly intrigued by how we "say what we say", the failures and successes of our attempts to use language to communicate, and the manner in which people reveal and conceal themselves through language and gesture.
My practice explores the territory of communication, failure, and crisis - the frailty of language and our repeated efforts to connect despite language's inefficiency and tendency toward miscommunication. This duality of human experience particularly intrigues me - how we continually attempt to communicate, how we insistently seek connection through language, despite the fact that as often as not our attempts result in failure or misinterpretation. The frailty of human interaction is completely at the mercy of the inefficiency and insufficiency of language.
My practice in installation, drawing, performance, and video investigates the everyday failures and breathtaking catastrophes of human interaction and experience.
The worlds we live in are tenuous, fragile, delicate, and precarious. They tend toward chaos and decay rather than a confident growth toward solidity and safety. They can go up in a blaze with one poor choice, one ill-chosen word, one missed connection. Crisis and disaster on the micro- and macro-level can be precipitated by anything – personal, political, or environmental.
I am fascinated with humankind’s capacity to continue in the face of crises large and small, personal and political, from the simplest failure of connection between two people to large-scale crises between nations. Yet we are hopeful (delusional?) despite all odds. We set the previous failure aside, and try again. To me this is the basic paradox and miracle of being human and my art practice embraces these limitations and challenges, using them as a catalyst and a point of departure.
I also believe that awareness, people being nudged slightly more awake, can be a first step towards changing our culture. Using my art as a device to stimulate us toward a more active stance is a primary focus for me. That is what I am after - engaging people to think, feel, exist, to act. If our culture never asks us to be active, or involved, if it never pushes us to expand what we believe we are capable of, then how can we hope to become more than just consumers? Much of my work as an artist asks viewers to become actively engaged. I wish to involve users as active, thinking, engaged participant-collaborators in the creation of art.
A list of some of my projects is at the left in chronological order. The projects are also listed below, sorted by medium.
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