Artist Statement

On every walk I take, my eyes are drawn to the ground in my fascination with scraps, trash, and objects out-of-place. I photograph or collect the packaging, handwritten shopping lists, and cigarette packs scattering the ground, as they become powerfully re-contextualized and stripped of prior significance. My love for trash is objectively odd, but I find so much visual and conceptual beauty in what and where someone chose to discard something, as these scraps offer small, fragmented, and fascinatingly intimate insight into other people's experiences.

Naturally, I concentrate in paper collage; a scrap-based medium of re-contextualization and fragmented visual storytelling. My collages, prints, and graphic designs all take inspiration from the beauty I see in scraps and trash. Recognizable logos, typography, and juxtaposing images within my works aim for personal resonance with open-ended meaning.

Within my collection of discarded and dropped shopping lists, it’s clear when someone is cluelessly shopping for a vegetarian for the first time, when they’re on their way to a rodeo, or when they’re starting a crash diet. But then again, I will never know for sure. The room for conjecture I allow myself when admiring scraps and trash, I offer to viewers of my artwork. Often visual reflections of deeply personal memories or extensively researched histories, my artworks aim for a balance between meaningful narrative and the absurdity of the human experience. Striking that balance is central to my practice, as I hope it invites people to bring their own experiences, biases, and identities to my work.