statement

My artwork is a metaphor for how the brain categorizes, juxtaposes and seemingly illogically organizes visual information. Through an investigation of symbols, archetypes, the collective unconscious, I look for ways that the psyche reveals information to us. While much of this information is cryptic, it is clear to me that my subconscious mind is often trying to expose what it means to me to be a woman.

I use an intuitive approach to art making and rely on my instincts to create ambiguous narratives that indirectly describe the inner workings of my mind. The most effective way to access my subconscious is to examine a collection of both contemporary and historical images from books, magazines and photographs and then dissect the meaning. As I engage with certain images I am drawn into a place in my mind that is both emotionally charged and yet not immediately identifiable. I experience an urgent need to visually describe these feelings.

My drawings often contain a vast array of symbols elaborately layered in space. I create symbols almost instinctually, pulling from a reservoir of various sources including my life experiences as well as archetypal knowledge of the past. I explore symbols as a way to express something that is either essentially unknowable or not yet known. Symbols open one up to mystery. The symbols in my artwork are transient and have multiple meanings for multiple viewers.

The narratives I construct always revolve around one or more female figures. There is a calling within each of my drawings to explore and understand what it means to me to be female. Although the women I render do not represent any one person in particular, there is always a part of me described in each character I create. I invent women that I hope will teach me about what it means to be a woman. I intuitively tell the stories that are not just my own, but that of my mother, my grandmother and the women that have permeated my life. These women are my friends and family members, but they are also women I identify with from history. The books that I have read of accounts of uniquely female experiences throughout different time periods, cultures and political and social milieus trickle into my narratives. When I draw women, what I am most interested in is confronting and dismantling a history of societal expectations that keep women from being the complicated, complex and ambiguous individuals that they are today and always have been.

bio

born: 1979, Holland, Michigan

education

Kendall College of Art and Design, MFA, 2014
Grand Valley State University, BFA, 2003

selected awards/honors

Kendall Scholarship of Merit, Kendall College of Art and Design, 2013
Kendall Scholarship of Merit, Kendall College of Art and Design, 2011
Alexander Calder Honors Scholarship, Grand Valley State University, 2002
Advance Visual Art Scholarship, Grand Valley State University, 1998

selected publications

Drawing Essentials: A Guide to Drawing from Observation, Third Edition, by Deborah Rockman; to be published in 2015
Poets and Artists: Immortality and Vulnerability, by Sergio Gomez and Didi Menendez, 2015
Poets and Artists: Raw Beauty, By Sergio Gomez, 2014

selected solo or two-person exhibits

Urban Institute for Contemporary Arts, In Flux, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 2013
Byrneboehm Gallery, Face to Face, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 2011
West Michigan Center for Arts and Technology, Skin Deep, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 2010
Chopin Theatre, Examination of Self and Body, Chicago, Illinois, 2007

selected group shows

Zhou B Art Center, Immortality and Vulnerability, Chicago, Illinois, 2015
Scarfone/Hartley Gallery, Adjunct Faculty Show, University of Tampa, Florida, 2014
WNF Galleries at Kendall College of Art and Design, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 2014
33 Contemporary Gallery, National Wet Paint MFA Biennial Exhibition, Chicago, Illinois, 2013