I overheard a conversation between two children visiting my most recent exhibition that succinctly described my work: “What is this place?” “It’s imaginary! It’s underwater and on earth too.” Geography is fate, for humans and for the natural world. Michigan dunes, Ecuadorian mangroves, and Sonoran deserts all merge in my work. I am interested in transplants, species that can adapt to new places and find ways to thrive there. My botanically inspired sculptures are a hybridized mashup of forms and textures from across the natural world, creating an environment that is both familiar and alien.
My current body of work grew out of my fascination with bioluminescent plants, animals and fungi. I am interested in the effect that light has on one’s experience of a place, and am enchanted by the idea of living beings producing their own light. One of my key memories is plunging into the sea off the coast of Ecuador and seeing each breaking wave sparkle with green-blue light from the plankton living in those waters. To make light, biologically or metaphorically, is a way to immediately change our relationship to the world. I hope to create for the visitor an environment that reminds them of that potential for wonder.