I choose materials that are somehow basic or even elemental, yet metaphorically open to interpretation. I recontextualize these familiar things, allowing them to be themselves, with minimal interventions that subvert the mundane to expose what is beautiful or eccentric about it. Blurring the line between sneakiness and subtlety, I value humor and irony as much as beauty. Viewers’ experience of the work will always be shaped by their own abundant associations with such ordinary things as paper, salt, or a bed. I prefer the work to function initially on a nonverbal level; I am interested in the idea of communicating something without saying it. I ask myself: How little is still enough? How quiet is still able to say something? What does “minimal” mean to me? I aim my work toward a poetic spareness that can complement my love of compulsive detail, and toward a visceral impact that can reveal literate conceptual intent.
I find endless inspiration in the learned structures and stories of everyday
life—folklore and identity, grammar and handwriting, transit maps
and Chinese restaurant menus. I am perpetually fascinated by the concept
of many small actions accumulating into something large. This idea finds
compelling expression in traditional folktales, in which characters are
required to accomplish seemingly impossible tasks overnight, on pain of
death. Successful completion earns equally hyperbolic rewards—kingdom,
princess, jewels. The tasks vary but often involve painstaking detail
and tedious repetition: separating different types of rice or seed out
from a mountain of mixed grain, or spinning a roomful of straw into gold.
Perhaps a contemporary version could involve filing, copying, or other
office duties. Our lives and our work—what we build over time—are
an accumulation of small actions and events. These things can be tedious
and oppressive, or they can be beautiful and soothing in the way that
patterns are formed. Overtly or privately, my own personal stories are
always present as a driving force in the work.
