Resonance Series

Liberty Series

The large paintings in this series are based on the MRI scans that led to my father’s Alzheimer’s diagnosis. Painted in black, white, and silver, they are larger-than-life renderings that offer an impossible view inside my father’s brain. Attached to the paintings with magnets are torn strips of canvas and pieces of my father’s hardware collection, which he saved and used over many years to repair our family home. These jars of metal pieces fascinated me as a child and hint at both the wonder and care that parents provide for their children.

Disease without cure can make us want to do something, even when there is nothing to be done. Finding a way to sit with the person, the disease, and our feelings without pushing any of it away is a challenge. I believe that looking closely, collectively grieving, and acknowledging our helplessness can help us move towards a place of acceptance. Opening ourselves up to the deep brokenness and deterioration that happens in a human life can be, in the end, what repairs us.

My Liberty Series paintings investigate issues of freedom and equality. The paintings express these ideals as both formidable and fragmented, and seek to engage with them in a new way.

Starting with paper photographs, I fold the images to give them a new 3rd dimension, communicating both disruption and resilience. The ability to fold and reconfigure uncovers new meanings in familiar images. I make large paintings of the fragile paper constructions to fix transitional moments in a solid form.

As a white American female raised in the 1980s, I grew up believing liberty and equality were inevitable and always advancing. My Liberty paintings question that inevitability, and look at the uncertainty and possibility in our new era.

The Statue of Liberty is a shared American icon that means something to almost everyone, but can mean something different to each person. The Liberty series examines those meanings and the nature of shared ideals in a time of change.