Artist Statement
There are times when I try to remember aspects of my childhood as vividly as possible, specifically the weekends. Friday nights were for eating out with my grandparents and crashing in the living room while watching a conservative version of witch craft, Sabrina the Teenage Witch, to later in the evening enjoying old bootleg VHS tapes with horror films for adults from the 70s and 80s. I can still see the cases those came in, and the lines that occasionally ran through the screen from a deteriorating tape as I would watch with excitement and fear. Saturdays occasionally consisted of renting a variety of flicks with my parents, especially horror. We would pig out on either delicious homemade grub, or fast food as we stared at the glowing screen. Once, I had to leave the living room because I was so frightened of a man being cut in half during Children of the Corn IV. I freaked out, but deep down I loved it!
Little did I know that I would have a lifelong fascination with scary movies, not only for the visceral feelings that they tied my family together with, but for the queer concepts that were deeper than the screen. Films such as Village of the Damned, The Exorcist, & Bloody Birthday’s underlying themes display a deep seeded fear that heteronormative society has when children behave peculiarly and threaten straight lives by acting out in ways that are freakish, evil, or abnormal. After all, kids are supposed to be innocent, sexless, and docile according to adults.
My art is based on these concepts of camp, queerness, horror, class, and humor with an emphasis on influences from films. I am always creating challenges for projects in which I combine these subjects to weave my identity, life, and upbringing together. Each work is an amalgamation of communication that shows where I am today, while materializing past stages of my life. Whether I am constructing a mixed media installation or building functional ceramic vessels, I always consider the visual and physical engagement of the viewer. Through this, I’m able to remember adolescence and fill in the blurry aspects with my own queer and horrific ideas of what I think are interesting and beautiful.
There are times when I try to remember aspects of my childhood as vividly as possible, specifically the weekends. Friday nights were for eating out with my grandparents and crashing in the living room while watching a conservative version of witch craft, Sabrina the Teenage Witch, to later in the evening enjoying old bootleg VHS tapes with horror films for adults from the 70s and 80s. I can still see the cases those came in, and the lines that occasionally ran through the screen from a deteriorating tape as I would watch with excitement and fear. Saturdays occasionally consisted of renting a variety of flicks with my parents, especially horror. We would pig out on either delicious homemade grub, or fast food as we stared at the glowing screen. Once, I had to leave the living room because I was so frightened of a man being cut in half during Children of the Corn IV. I freaked out, but deep down I loved it!
Little did I know that I would have a lifelong fascination with scary movies, not only for the visceral feelings that they tied my family together with, but for the queer concepts that were deeper than the screen. Films such as Village of the Damned, The Exorcist, & Bloody Birthday’s underlying themes display a deep seeded fear that heteronormative society has when children behave peculiarly and threaten straight lives by acting out in ways that are freakish, evil, or abnormal. After all, kids are supposed to be innocent, sexless, and docile according to adults.
My art is based on these concepts of camp, queerness, horror, class, and humor with an emphasis on influences from films. I am always creating challenges for projects in which I combine these subjects to weave my identity, life, and upbringing together. Each work is an amalgamation of communication that shows where I am today, while materializing past stages of my life. Whether I am constructing a mixed media installation or building functional ceramic vessels, I always consider the visual and physical engagement of the viewer. Through this, I’m able to remember adolescence and fill in the blurry aspects with my own queer and horrific ideas of what I think are interesting and beautiful.
