Welcome Wayne State search committee members

Please enjoy paging around a selection of my work. To help situate the way I think about designing and making, I have included a short artist statement. Good luck with this process and I hope we get to meet.

I am interested in literal and metaphorical technologies that transform language and ideas into symbols.  This transformation of form is most fascinating to me when applied to objects, more specifically when an object becomes a product.  Objects are testaments to cultural accretion, and I am interested in the blend of personal and economic information that they are embedded with.  My work is engaged with labor, manufacturing, materialism, and technology in the United States (and the concept of ‘America’) by taking materialism literally, exploring its fundamentals by dissecting them and then repurposing their meaning.

Compressing objects into cartoonish simplicity is essential for transmitting at speed, which makes my work engage directly with the technologic desire of instantaneity. Technology for entertainment, such as cartoons,  memes, musical instruments, toys, and magic tricks provide the framework and a familiar form of interaction for the viewer. Humor operates duly as research subject and technique, allowing me to delve into the social constructs that guide the experience humor and hopefully get viewers to implicate themselves in the work.

Whether it takes the form of meticulously assembled Miesian Whoopee cushions or a player trumpet, I practice rigorous absurdism in the studio. This renegotiation of form and material allows me to reckon with history and the future concurrently. Dexterity and time with material allows me to bend objects past the point of believability to achieve a seamless sleight of hand.