For my art, I use a multimedia approach to tell stories. At the center of my work, textile costumes and creatures (crocheted, knitted, sewn) serve as a tool for creating characters. These designs use bright colors, absurd proportions, and ambiguous features to create comic yet unnerving representations of human bodies. I may, for example, transform myself into a featureless orange creature armed with an oversized Walkman and headphones for one piece. Storytelling, photography, sound, and analog and digital technology all may play a role in creating “narratives” for these characters to occupy, with specific formats varying based on their respective stories. I photograph myself and friends wearing these costumes in a narrative context, engineering scenes and stories for the characters to inhabit. I use music, soundscapes, and props to further develop these worlds and write associated stories in standard prose, comics, and non-linear digital formats.
The stories I am interested in telling often have tragicomic elements, using a joking tone to make themes of loneliness, alienation, and discomfort in one’s body more palatable while still impactful. I enjoy hypermodern fictional settings, where aspects of contemporary life are exaggerated for both humor and drama. For instance, the orange character described above is accompanied by polaroids of them and related characters, a cassette full of covers of nostalgic songs, and a short story about a satirical dystopia with heavy references to 80s music and internet culture. .
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