Artist Statement

Looking at a tree over many years, leaves appear from branch tips and the trunk widens. It emerges from a tiny seedling no smaller than the size of a finger, twisting, forking, bulging, and towering beyond my grasp. From where does the force build? What are the small changes that accumulate as it ages? What are these powers of growth and decay? With these questions, I create my own work using slow processes of subtraction and accumulation.

For example, I explore subtractive processes in burning through thin layers of paper as a method of gradual erosion and excavation. Carving and drawing into the layered paper, I use the ember from incense to create openings that allow the paper to move. The burning is an irreversible physical change—a death. The breathing movement of the paper suggests an addition—life. Herein lies a paradox, the simultaneous existence of life and death, of love and loss.

In additive processes, I pile stickers to generate figures and systems. One sticker connects to another, building steps in time. When two stickers build off of one, a forking path occurs, like two different choices. With these pieces, I use a set number of units or a range of sizes in the same shape. Through piling I ask, what can the parts become?

Through careful attention at each step, I cast aside pre-conceived notions and discover meaning in direct response to the materials. The work is an engagement with the mystery of being.