Artist Statement

 I believe that different drawing and printmaking processes influence my artwork on a regular basis. The process plays a big role in what will be created, starting with something unpredictable or hard to control then working back into it.  Most of my work has an organic quality referencing the body and things that you might find in nature. As an avid collector of many things, especially rocks and shells, these shapes show up a lot in my art. Dealing with relationships, comparisons and clusters of objects, I like the viewer to look at groupings and analyze what they are looking at, to compare and contrast. I enjoy the identity of an object, a system or groping. The human body and the functions of other living things are often something that I am thinking about. Why does something work really well in our body and then when you introduce something else it can completely break down and not work anymore? These systems that I am creating are not necessarily a direct representation of a certain system but something that I have created to either work or not work. I think that as artists we are constantly collecting and analyzing materials. It is something that influences us and satisfies a subconscious need. Is it the need to have massive quantities of one thing, a need of preparation or just exploration? Maybe it is to learn something new. For me, it is the thrill of acquiring a certain item and in my artwork it is a way of showing objects all different but connected in some way.