Artist Statement
I create work about how political, social, and cultural platforms can be turned into personal acts of care. Conversation and interaction are integral parts of my creative process, which allow me to explore a blurred boundary between gallery exhibit and social practice. Color, texture, installation, and community building all combine to create a shared space of connection and contemplation. For years I have examined the importance of human connection and its visual embodiment. My resulting praxis embodies connection, community building, and relational exchange.
The concept of radical care is especially important to how I approach my paintings and installations. It is my way of visually expressing Martin Buber’s I/Thou philosophy, which propagates the idea that life finds its meaningfulness through seeing one and other. Much of my work realizes radical care by utilizing a dialogue and engagement process, the results of which are directly incorporated into the painting or installation. This is a reciprocal practice; intimate conversations turn into my making process, which then is presented to contribute to a public, collective voice.
Short Bio
(b. Duluth, Minnesota) lives and works in St. Paul, MN. Responding to today’s world, I make artwork that challenges isolation, loneliness and disconnection by activating color and light in large-scale work. Local context and creating connections with others is embodied in my creative process and public interventions.
Current projects include: Two large-scale permanent public mosaic artworks at the MSP Airport (2021), 122 Conversations currently installed in MSP airport Terminal 2 (2019- 2022), the Belgrade Art Residency, Serbia (2021), Turn Up the Turn Out, a cohort of 22 artists dedicated to the promotion of voting and voting registration in Minnesota (2020), Response (2020), a body of new works responding to COVID 2020 isolation, an Outdoor fence installation in Berlin, Germany (June 2021), a site-specific participatory public art commission at the Redleaf Center For Family Healing (2021), I Love You Institute, a community-based art project, supported by a Springboard for the Arts community grant, and solo exhibitions at Art In Motion, Holdingford (2021), Concordia St Paul (2021), Minnesota Marine Art Museum (2022), and Rochester Art Center (2023).
Previous exhibitions include: University of Raparin, Rania, Iraqi Kurdistan; Växjö Kunsthall, Växjö, Sweden; Petrozavodsk City Exhibition Hall, Petrozavodsk, Russia; Isumi City Hall, Isumi City, Japan; Thunder Bay Art Gallery, Thunder Bay, Canada; Tweed Museum, Duluth, MN; Athenaeum in La Jolla, CA; MSP Terminal 2, Minneapolis, MN; MSP Terminal 1, Minneapolis, MN; Crary Art Gallery, Warren, PA; Burnet Gallery, Le Méridien Chambers in Minneapolis; Talgut die Schönen, in Kunste, Germany; and the Chapman Art Center at Cazenovia College, Cazenovia, NY.
My artwork can be found in the following public collections: Minneapolis/St Paul Airport Collection; Frederick R Weisman Art Museum, Minneapolis; Minnesota Museum of American Art, St Paul; The Tweed Museum of Art, Duluth; The Athenaeum Music & Arts Library, La Jolla, CA; Minnesota Historical Society, St Paul; International Gallery of Portrait, in Bosnia-Herzegovina; Växjö Kommun, City of Vaxjo, Sweden; Isumi City Offices, Isumi City Japan; University of Raparin, Rania Iraqi Kurdistan; and City of Petrozavodsk, Petrozavodsk, Russia.
As part of my praxis, I connect to communities through activism, anti-racism, and public co-creation. I was a participant in the initial cohort of the Woke Coach, founding member of Racial Equity Committee at the Walker Art Center (Minneapolis), and the steering committee of Turn up the Turn Out. My current long-term social practice project is the I Love You Institute, an artist-led site-specific project urgently working with communities to address today’s world creatively. It combines art-making, social justice, radical kindness, and relational listening to normalize, saying “I Love You” as an alternative to division and conflict.