Statement 2010
As an emerging artist and writer with a background in the Silicon Valley tech-industry of the 1990s, I am interested in formally exploring as a writer, visual artist, web-master and performer, the beginnings of what we now know as social media, because I was there, engaged within it and in a capacity to witness it. At the time I took notes as an active participant as well as an observer.
Along with technology, my work addresses the struggles that exist within my generation of the evolution of gender and identity by exploring and investigating experiences or potential experiences had by characters in a fictional realm. I express myself mostly through a personal narrative, though my work is often my own reality that has been fictionalized. I use the “first person” in an attempt to draw the viewer or reader into the experience of the character and that character is an outsider, a little bit crazy but mostly a socially functioning geek. Perceiving my own identity intimately and at the same time objectively is an important element, as I believe this action mirrors how we’ve grown to perceive the “celebrity” and also how we are learning to take control of our identities via social media.
Place is important to me specifically as a writer, but it is revealed in all of my work. I’m interested in America because I am an American. My lens of this country is as a Californian born from a parent from another country. Los Angeles is the perfect base for my work, because of the city’s connection to diversity and to simulacra.
Economics and how it affects ones place in society is also something I explore. I am most interested in how a person’s perception of their position economically as well as socially effects personal identity beliefs. What is someone’s background and family history? What are the commodities being traded? What has value and why? In this way, I often address the shop-space and the consumer object.
My work formally depicts connections and natural form. Visually I reference nature, craft, the DIY ethic, the expendable object and the feminine: “cute.” Paintings often appear biological and wet. Color is very important. Many pieces are illustrative and speak to the comic or the cartoon. My web graphics are often intentionally "lo-fi" scanned collages of photos and drawn imagery as well as patterns and text. My performances contain narratives that discuss personal struggle, science fiction, pop culture, excess and commodity and are meant to be humorous and awkward. In my writing and in my other projects I hope to highlight the corners of the heart where good, evil, social standards, rules and desires are harder to define, or are temporarily questioned. More than anything though, I want to be funny. I know I'm absurd but I hope I'm also funny.
