I like to work as a visual devil’s advocate, using contradiction as a way to create an empathetic image. By comparing and contrasting ideas and materials, my work creates a visual clash but also a sense of balance. This idea of contradiction manifested itself in a series of Industrial Doilies, which examined industrial and domestic life as well as relationships of strong and delicate, masculine and feminine, practical and frivolity, ornament and function. There is also a secondary idea being explored here, of lace used in religious ceremonies such as weddings, christenings, and funerals. My new work has become more political, the consequence of living in a time of war and feeling the guilt of a bystander. In the first political piece titled Filigree Car Bombing, I focused on creating a tasteless relationship of images: images of flowers and “prettiness” in the form of a violent and sensitive situation. The crushed steel of the car is cut into fine lace creating a drapery of disruption and sadness, a conflict of attraction to fancy work and the attraction to a horrific image. My recent exhibition entitled Crude pulled together the relationship of God and oil. Though the images deal with overt political topics, the images do not point to anything specific—they merely coexist—and what they say really depends on the viewer’s history. I have always been interested in embracing the very thing that repels me in order to understand it: I prefer to make sense of things before I suspend (or pass) judgment.
Ammunition
Selected works
Sweet Crude
Car Bombing