ARTIST STATEMENT

I am constantly questioning, exploring, and investigating the fabric of my own individuality and experience within the world. It becomes clear that the historic context of cultural influences and genealogy have shaped my interiority of identity. Being born into a working-class family, growing up in a working-class family, and living in a working-class family has enabled me to appreciate the labor-intensive means to have a sustainable life. It has shaped the way in which I perceive myself as well as others in relation to society. When analyzing the institution, it becomes abundantly clear historically who is worthy of being honored, remembered, and depicted through the Eurocentric tradition of portraiture. My work attempts to restructure the Eurocentric tradition of portraiture and the notion of those that may be held in high regard. Based on the segmentation of social and economic status the defining characteristics of class become a means to describe an identity. Through contextual ideas of recognition of the politicized propaganda that has been created of the individual, their body, and their identity, I seek to depict the individual, the everyday person as a person. I use drawing and painting as a direct correlation to the traditions of portraiture, but to now depict those who would otherwise be unknown. Whereas I use collage to challenge the traditions of how a portrait is created through a new means to describe the interiority of the individual. The medium becomes a part of the message. Through laborious brushstrokes, tedious mark making, and carefully cut photographs I connect with working class traditions of production. While my experimentations have made me question my own constructs of identity, the more investigative the work becomes in search for honesty, the more exposure I gain in the hopes to attain a broader perspective of culture, society, and life by challenging the boundaries of an identity.