Family Portraits

These are my projects about familial structures and memory.  Here I have portraits of my mom, brother, and father; none flattering but showing the real anguish and turmoil they were feeling (and at times that I felt towards them). 

Self Portrait: Worst Day of my Life

This is a collage of a photo I found in a thrift store with a photo taken of me on the day my mom found out about “the crime” my dad committed. This elusive and mysterious crime loomed over my childhood like a spectre and I didn’t know until I was much older what had happened. The original picture was of me joyously playing in the leaves, juxtaposing the turmoil my family was going through. I put this against the image of an anonymous girl shielding her face in a field in front of a house. Complete strangers to me, I have no context for the image. We draw our own conclusions based on our own lives.

Cabinet of Curiosities

I then began collecting items that people donated to me that they associated with trauma or anxiety. I displayed these in a solo show I had in 2019 called Cabinet of Curiosities. I displayed every object without context or label letting the viewer put their own interpretation on each object. These were displayed along side images of my own life; including vermin I had lived with, mold, clutter and mess. I used my own life as an example to how the mundane can be twisted into trauma.

Residual Ritual

Residual Ritual was a performance I did at dfbrl8r gallery in 2020. I reenacted an act that used to bring me shame to release the shame from my body. By bringing what used to be a private act, heating water manually to have to bathe when the gas was cut off in our house, I bring it to light and remove the power it had over me. During this time I was in middle school and could not bathe as often as I needed to, I was often stinky and it was noticed by other kids. I had to manually heat water in order to bathe and I was deeply ashamed. To be able to perform this act in a gallery as an adult in college was freeing. I was thinking about memory, the past, and shame.