The Puppet

Digital collage on canvas under plastic, mounted to art board. 32"x30"x6" Made in 2025. These soft sculptures offer viewers shifting perspectives that emerge when viewing something from different angles. This concept is central to my practice, as my "soft sculptures" challenge traditional notions of stability, permanence, and meaning. Crafted from plastic and collaged materials, each piece features a glossy exterior that both attracts and deflects, symbolizing facades and the hidden complexities beneath. Deep crevasses, coupled with twisted materials that break the traditional picture plane, contribute to the notion of relativity. The plastic itself embodies dualities: disposability and resilience, permanence and impermanence. Over time, the sculptures sag and morph, mirroring the human body’s vulnerability and transformation. This interplay of materiality and metaphor creates a tactile and conceptual experience for the viewer. My process begins with instinctive, uninhibited actions—splattering paint, glue, and glitter—to relinquish control and explore color with spontaneity. Often, I fetishize color, pushing it to overwhelmingly candy- colored, bright extremes in a somewhat desperate effort to counteract anxiety and depression. This emotional rawness is balanced by integrating printed materials that reference retro-sexist advertisements, cultural pathos, and metaphysical symbols. Manipulating these elements into seemingly random combinations, I scrape openings with my fingers, creating intentional marks and spaces where paint breaks through. A key aspect of my process is the continual removal of images I love, a practice that reflects the themes of loss and transformation inherent in the work. The works aim to engage viewers on multiple levels, encouraging them to consider their own interpretations. Each piece invites reflection on the tension between beauty and discomfort, the allure of gloss and the fragility beneath, and the ways we navigate creation and erasure in our lives.