By highlighting marginalized spheres and their connection to the status quo, my work investigates visual language and the human connection to physical goods and the natural world. Employing materials as diverse as 3D printed resin, neon, and turned wood, I embrace both tradition and emerging technologies to illuminate the manufactured disparity between high and low culture. The often-overlooked realms of folk art and belief, as well as the diminished history and signifiers of queer society act as touchstones for a deeper consideration of masculinity, politics, mythologies, and the place of consumerism in American society.
By employing mundane materials like wood, sandpaper, and metal, the selected works speak to a tradition of sculptural construction while also remarking on the transformation of everyday objects into something more. Found elements and neon evoke urban ephemera while the inviting luster of smoothly painted wooden facsimiles speaks to the divide between the handmade and the mass-produced. Little Trees air fresheners in the scents of prescribed masculinity, a down quilt carved from wood, and the reinvention of emblematic symbols in neon ask for a reassessment of common signifiers related to the codification of class, culture, and gender.