ARTIST STATEMENT:
My current body of work is based on my interpretation of animal and plant cells. The work is inspired by my recent journey through breast cancer and healing, with the core of my work being a contradiction between fragility and strength. The direction I took marks a paradigm shift in my work, with a focus on installation, colour, forms and patterns linking the micro and macro worlds.
After facing my own mortality, all things around me became beautiful, the natural world and its beauty was amplified. I went into nature to heal, hiking mountains and visiting the ocean, taking photographs of plants, shapes and colours. Because plants have rigid cell walls and do not die from cancer, I felt particularly drawn to studying them. This paired with research on microscopic images of cells, led to the inspiration for this body of work. Exploring the connections between science and art, I focussed on merging the rational with the abstract. As everything happens at the cellular level, I was acutely aware of the profound effects these tiny cells have on human consciousness and how one cell gone wrong can alter someone’s life. Dissecting the cell structure and reassembling the elements into something beautiful is my attempt to document the journey.
“Cellular Expressions,” inspired by both plant and animal cells, started with cells, created individually and hung to form a collective. This installation started by deconstructing cells to basic shapes, through the drawing process, multiplying those shapes and reconstructing them into an artificial landscape out of mylar. From a minute living cell to a whole community, our lives, like cells, are interconnected, each one tenuous, separate but so closely linked and dependent on each other. “Cell Portraits,” are microscopic images of cells simplified to very basic forms, resulting in my interpretation of cells from a distance and cells up close. After painting, printmaking, cutting and ripping, I burnt the edges, approaching it as a transformative ritual, mimicking the tradition of burning as a way of releasing something that no longer serves me. “Bureaucratic Rationality- microscopic slides,” are plexiglass panels painted with encaustic, with added wax cell sculptures, loosely based on cell structure and shape. The diptych references microscopic slides, the medical system and the bureaucracy that I spent a year and half of my life in.
Pairing natural material (paper and wax) with plastic (plexiglass and mylar) was deliberate to contrast healing to the disease. Rigid forms that morph into a flowing mass signifies the tension between order and chaos and the feeling of being out of control, and the importance of letting go.
These cells could belong to anyone and everyone. “Everything Became Beautiful” is a love letter to healthy cells, and a personal testament to courageously moving forward into new territory.
Funding for this work was generously provided by: Columbia Kootenay Cultural Alliance and the Columbia Basin Trust.
My current body of work is based on my interpretation of animal and plant cells. The work is inspired by my recent journey through breast cancer and healing, with the core of my work being a contradiction between fragility and strength. The direction I took marks a paradigm shift in my work, with a focus on installation, colour, forms and patterns linking the micro and macro worlds.
After facing my own mortality, all things around me became beautiful, the natural world and its beauty was amplified. I went into nature to heal, hiking mountains and visiting the ocean, taking photographs of plants, shapes and colours. Because plants have rigid cell walls and do not die from cancer, I felt particularly drawn to studying them. This paired with research on microscopic images of cells, led to the inspiration for this body of work. Exploring the connections between science and art, I focussed on merging the rational with the abstract. As everything happens at the cellular level, I was acutely aware of the profound effects these tiny cells have on human consciousness and how one cell gone wrong can alter someone’s life. Dissecting the cell structure and reassembling the elements into something beautiful is my attempt to document the journey.
“Cellular Expressions,” inspired by both plant and animal cells, started with cells, created individually and hung to form a collective. This installation started by deconstructing cells to basic shapes, through the drawing process, multiplying those shapes and reconstructing them into an artificial landscape out of mylar. From a minute living cell to a whole community, our lives, like cells, are interconnected, each one tenuous, separate but so closely linked and dependent on each other. “Cell Portraits,” are microscopic images of cells simplified to very basic forms, resulting in my interpretation of cells from a distance and cells up close. After painting, printmaking, cutting and ripping, I burnt the edges, approaching it as a transformative ritual, mimicking the tradition of burning as a way of releasing something that no longer serves me. “Bureaucratic Rationality- microscopic slides,” are plexiglass panels painted with encaustic, with added wax cell sculptures, loosely based on cell structure and shape. The diptych references microscopic slides, the medical system and the bureaucracy that I spent a year and half of my life in.
Pairing natural material (paper and wax) with plastic (plexiglass and mylar) was deliberate to contrast healing to the disease. Rigid forms that morph into a flowing mass signifies the tension between order and chaos and the feeling of being out of control, and the importance of letting go.
These cells could belong to anyone and everyone. “Everything Became Beautiful” is a love letter to healthy cells, and a personal testament to courageously moving forward into new territory.
Funding for this work was generously provided by: Columbia Kootenay Cultural Alliance and the Columbia Basin Trust.