Eden

Sometimes I think the best way for me to create change is to go to the place of original story to disrupt the narratives and their visual traditions. Over the past two years, I have been going to the Garden of Eden. I am armed with curiosity, humor and the creative process. 

As part of my lectures in art history, I often talk about the idea of Homo sapiens, and question if there are other ways of identifying our species. For instance, Jean Claud, an paleo-archeologist, posits instead we should identify as Homo spiritualis. What, indeed, makes us human? 

With the exhausting turnover of technology, and the newest addition of AI notwithstanding,  I have been exploring my idea of Homo technicus, to reflect a species that is tool- and knowledge- hungry. We are restless with the status quo, and drive ourselves for more information, better tools and social change, sometimes with uneven results.

The story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden is the story of the inevitable and insatiable drive for knowledge.  It offers endless possibilities to explore binaries such as patriarchy, gender, as well as the body as a site for conflicting stories of power and blame. The messy relationships between knowledge, technology, body and nature color our ability to tell new stories about ourselves, each other, and our world. 

These images are musings… Glimpses, visual questions, invitations to witness, explore, inquire, and laugh at the crazy nature of paradox that we are.

In my work, there are always three different elements, the unpredicted, collage and ink. The first part of my process is forcing the unexpected – in this series the unexpected comes in the form of the black silhouettes, which I cut without drawing. Most arise just from the risky endeavor of making cuts without a plan or a promise and regarding what comes from that. The second part of my practice is about collage, and the unexpected conversation that happens between materials that have their own history and visual and graphic presence. The third part of my practice has to do with ink in some capacity, either with the figure drawn with brush and ink, Japanese marbling techniques, or the pen. This part of my practice is about the virtuosity of line. Ink captures and archives my movement as it reaches for the barely-there, the whisper, the body in motion. 

These images are never preplanned. They are discovered, and I look for unexpected dialogue between the elements. If I laugh, the work is done. .

Originals and Prints are available for purchase. Please email for sizes and prices.