Face All That’s Shameful | Monoprint with Mixed Media | 21" x 28" | 2014

Artist Statement: I am fascinated by the way we perceive the world around us. Not so much in the limitations by sight, or by what is straight forward and in front of us. More so in this notion that our inner emotions, strengths, fears, and flaws dictate what we see. It is these flirtations with the Photoshop culture, disability shaming, and social acceptance that heavily influence how we view our own self-perception. So many of us show only a percentage of our lives to the public. We are taught through the media that we have to work to become a better version of ourselves, and end up struggling to keep those aspects of our lives hidden because we are afraid of what judgment may fall upon us. These notes of social insecurity are the deeper meanings and conceptual influences that I like to layer into my work. Being a mixed media printmaker allows me to showcase these boundaries, by taking a print, and changing the way it’s viewed by adding in layers of found objects, fiber, paper, textures, and photographs. Each project within itself reflects upon social issues of disability, self-awareness, and everyday hidden identities—the things we don’t want people to see, or know that prevent our own self-acceptance. Bringing to surface a deeper conceptual idea that the viewer can choose to see, or ignore, as they pass. Allowing them to decide if they will take the extra moment to examine their own inner secrets as they take in the bold graphic qualities of my work.