Available Art
Botanical Organs
I create these intricate pieces as a way to redefine human bodies in connection with environments. Influenced by magical realism, biosurrealism, and biomedical art, these sculptures capture a sense of hope for bodies replete with life. They're playful surfaces represented in acts of regeneration.
I'm drawn to anatomical art because organs are often sites of conflict in our embodied lives. Our loved ones are lost to cancers of organs; our children are born with differences that make them vulnerable; our organs have been surgically removed, yet their absence is forever felt; chronic illness has impaired the function of parts of our bodies...The list goes on because organs are mostly invisible to us, even when they are the subject of so much attention and worry. The determination of organs to remain invisible to us is what makes them such compelling art objects.
I'm struck by the role that art can play in acts of bodily reclamation. Art can change the way that we see the parts of ourselves that are otherwise invisible. And that hope-fueled process is something I feel very honoured to be a part of.
Small Mermaid Wreaths
Made entirely of marine debris that I've compiled, sorted, cleaned, and broken down so that it can have new life. I've worked with retired fishing gear, boating rope, fishing net, crabbing rope, boat tags, and rope/cord from fish farms. Each mermaid wreath is one of a kind (I'll never make the same one twice). I wanted these wreaths to look somewhat alive and creaturely (hence barnacles with tentacles holding a found fishing tag), but also distinctly feminine (reminiscent of fascinators), while still retaining visual hints of the more industrial material they're coiled, knotted, and wrapped with/around. My point is twofold here: to transform and upcycle waste, yes--but to do this by subverting the typically masculine orientation of marine industries and their materials. The Anthropocene is feminine too, and I can't think of a more perfect muse for this epiphany than the mermaid.
Mini Mermaid Wreaths
A second generation of minis! Tiny art. No two mini mermaid wreaths are made alike, and while I recycle the concept--each new generation is created in a different way. This time around, I found cause to experiment fully with colour rather than gradient. Marine debris does not exactly come in neutral colours, and this presents itself as a fun challenge to create unexpected colour stories. Made of nothing but waste pulled from the ocean (and a custom initialed/dated steel back plate), mermaid wreaths can live outside or even underwater. I designed this collection around the concept of a mermaid fascinator, and my aim was to demonstrate just how lively and colourful waste can be. Sometimes, when we think of waste we see washed out, faded colours. And, indeed, those are often the properties of the outside layer of ocean rope. Inside, though? Inside is almost bejewelled, and I think a mermaid would be well aware of this trick.