Artist Statement

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My work is a curiosity and questioning of the narratives that surround us. It is a representation of my experience of trying to fit in to not feel left out, of a pressure to achieve in order to avoid scrutiny, and of taming my emotions to maintain a vision of agreeableness.  My work is a way for me to revisit these engrained narratives and is an invitation for others to explore their experiences that may have also left them to feel othered by being vulnerable, or inauthentic because they wanted to fit in.

I find my time to reflect, or at times distract, from these socially defined narratives through walking; to be outside wandering alone is how I can let myself relax away from expectations, from questions, from conformity, and shift into a quiet noticing. Lately I wander the most through Toronto, I wander the laneways that connect streets lined with yards, where I see hawks diving for their next meal. I wander the beaches of Lake Ontario strewn with washed up bricks and discarded building materials, smoothed through years of being battered by waves. I wander past the construction sites tearing down the affordable housing to be replaced by shiny condo buildings whose windows reflect the city back onto itself.

These scenes of wandering and unhurried observation are impressed and integrated in my art practice as shapes, patterns, and colour. The pattern of blue balconies lining a building, the shape and indentations of construction equipment roaring to build a new subway line, the historical red brick colour both fiercely preserved and discarded. While the city can be chaotic and confusing, I often focus on the details of shapes that allow me to transform what I see and feel into controlled and exacting forms. This transformation enables me to re-write a narrative, and express care for personal experience through observation and compassion.

The sculptures I create can feel familiar and reminiscent of architectural or industrial forms, but they sidestep categorization by avoiding replication of known objects, similar to how I seek to move past stereotypes and expectations. The shapes and sculptures become an exploration of layers and depth, of lines and colour, of hope and acceptance. In their embrace of uncertainty and non-conformity, the sculptures demonstrate they don’t need to be understood to belong, and they don’t need to be recognizable to be beautiful.