INSTALLATIONS

2020-present



ANCESTOR GATHERINGS

I draw my ancestors to explore issues of empathy and the shared human experience. Each drawing is both a literal self-portrait (I draw them using a mirror) and a lens into the lives of other generations. During the pandemic I became aware of the inevitable force of respiration, and pivoted my creative activity away from traditional materials and venues to this living, breathing medium. While I was unable to gather with other people I installed my ancestors in the forest to breathe the winds of ever-threatening hurricanes in the late summer; to inhale the spores of decomposing mycelia in the fall; to exhale the poisons of hungry insects in the winter.

Ancestor Gathering- Long Beach Island, NJ
(carbon on paper, found textiles, heirloom cardboard, coastal forest)

This installation on the grounds of the Long Beach Island Foundation for Arts and Sciences explores the inevitability of life cycles and the interconnectedness of life. It is a collaboration with the natural elements of the New Jersey coast and the universal forces of decomposition. Each tree is an ancestor totem, composed of an original self-portrait drawn to conjure an individual ancestor and dressed in a vintage textile. Over the course of several seasons of exposure to salt wind, bright sunshine and biting rain, the carbon drawings will fade and decay, the gowns will mildew and unravel and, like us, they will all ultimately fall to the ground to be reanimated. Together, they are intended to evoke a spirit of both ritual and conviviality- a baptism, a tea party, a funeral. Through them, I invite viewers to participate briefly in the ephemeral celebrations and cycles of life.