Artist Statement
My work evolves from childhood memories, dreams, and fairy tales. In childhood, art and nature were my passions. Childhood, folklore, fairy tales, circus imagery, dreams and nightmares are some of the themes I’ve worked with. My memories from childhood experiences inspire my printed imagery, which in turn form the blueprints for both my sculptures and installations. My first love was drawing and painting and so swiftly printmaking has become my life for all its versatility and tradition.
We work out our understanding of the world through both experiences and dreams. My childhood was filled with dreams and memories revolving around the circus, folk-tales, and Grimm’s fairy tales. My only real childhood bond to my father was through the stories he would read to me each night. The original purpose of these fairy tales was to provide enjoyment but also to teach children social codes and values. Universally, people can relate to these tales as they are understandable and provide commentary on mores and social values. I have returned to these tales and replace their imagery and characters with my own, twisting them into references from my own memories and life. I enjoy the original duality to these tales, the truths hidden beneath the surface and attach my own meanings as well. I use dream-like fairy tale and circus references to things going on in my actual life currently as a means to adjust and adapt. I strive to prove to myself, that from those tales in an otherwise possibly meaningless act of reading them that they did impact me and make me who I am, even if they were in the end fiction.
The bulk of my work is in printmaking and consists primarily of etchings, engravings, or woodcuts. I treat my prints similar to how I work in my sketchbooks. With intaglio I do all the line work, texture and pattern, by etching, engraving, aquatinting and sometimes dry point. My prints primarily all mono-prints, hand painted with watercolor – no two will ever be exactly the same. I use saturated colors like the fairy tale illustrations I grew up with and the mediums I use are also historically traditional. My woodcuts are printed with layers of decorative paper chine coll’e below the solid printed block giving it subtle difference it pattern and texture. Each of my prints represents a personal memory that is significant to me and I feel my prints inspire me to push the boundaries between artist disciplines and mediums. To others, my images may reference folklore, fairy tales or childhood illustrations. I enjoy the work I make and the discourse it provokes people to talk to me about. I often find people will start to tell me their favorite story or memory as a child, and stories and memories are what my work is about at its core.