Statement

Urban theorists posit that we experience the city by the way in which we move through it.  My work is directly inspired by my daily commutes in New York and San Francisco on foot, bicycle, bus or train through an ever-evolving architectural landscape.  Primarily, I am interested in architectural failure, construction, development and urban renewal.  My work consists of drawings and architecturally-flawed installations made out of paper, cardboard, wax or foil.  My work comes from a place of great anxiety about things being unstable or falling apart.  

I have always been fascinated with the rate at which buildings get torn down and built back up in San Francisco. I am also amazed at the amount of redevelopment taking place in Lower Manhattan and the waterfront in Brooklyn.  It seems there is a constant constructing, destructing, excavating and rebuilding taking place in these cities   –the rate of redevelopment is exciting and alarming. I am interested in issues that come with development and urban renewal, such as the fragility of communities and lost histories, but also how these issues serve as metaphors for memory and personal upheaval.  Terms that feel important to the process of creating this work are foundation, preservation, façade and retrofit.

In the “Weakness” series, I explore the bridge as metaphor and engineering triumph.  My fascination with bridges stems from my experience living in the San Francisco Bay Area where the Golden Gate Bridge holds a strong presence, and where a portion of the Bay Bridge collapsed in the Loma-Prieta Earthquake of 1989.  I am concerned with the bridge as aesthetic form, but also as an engineering phenomenon in a world where error abounds; I am drawn to its beauty yet frightened by its frailty.  

Important elements in my work are engineering, scale, shadows/darkness and accessible materials.  Each piece is incredibly labor intensive to construct, yet once built, the piece will soon break, decay or be deconstructed.   In this way there is a sense of urgency for experiencing the piece, as this is temporary work.  It is also important that the process of making these structures be left exposed.  With this work I intend to generate questions and emphasize tension relating to dialectics of creation and destruction, vulnerability and indestructibility, the light and the dark, and stability and the tenuous.