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. Beautifully re-contextualized and stripped of significance - I photograph or collect the packaging, handwritten shopping lists, and cigarette packs scattering the ground. 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. Based purely in conjecture, those scraps offer small, fragmented, and fascinatingly intimate insights 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 are all inspired by the beauty I see in the out-of-place, scraps of trash. Recognizable logos, typography, and juxtaposing images within my artworks aim for personal resonance with open-ended meaning. Imagery and typography in my artwork read as both functional tools and aesthetic forms — sometimes clear in meaning, sometimes cryptic.

Reading into my collection of discarded and unassuming dropped shopping lists - I can tell someone is cluelessly shopping for a vegetarian for the first time, if they’re on their way to a rodeo, or if they’re starting a crash diet. But then again, I will never know for sure. Within this same mindset, 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. Central to my practice, I hope that balance invites people to bring their own experiences, biases, and identities to interactions with my work.