As an artist, I often find myself exploring the ugliness in things; in the world around me, and most actively, in people. Namely, I find myself attracted to the idea that everyone is inherently disgusting, both internally and externally, but that simultaneously people are diabolically beautiful. I believe that that dichotomy is a universal truth of what it means to be human. There is no good without bad. There is no beauty without filth. With too much of one, you become the other, and that deprivation of one is the vacancy of both. In every single person, that dichotomic scale tips back and forth in an unspoken expression of a human equilibrium. My art is an expression of this. It’s an exploration of us: a celebration of our faults, and a critique of our beauty.

   In the pursuit of these thoughts, I find my work featuring people which take the shape of what society considers ugly. I emphasize “grotesque” facial features like overly large noses, beady eyes and too-well-defined teeth. I fill my work with over-plump chimeric bodies in which any number of sex attributes are over-emphasized. I mean to depict relatable humanity in figures which, by virtue of their exaggerated features and odd postures, feel willfully uncomfortable, and yet are humorously and undeniably human; they are aspects of people you might be, know, or love.  They are certainly present in me.

I tend to work with raw materials and the prospect of motion. I am an animator and a sculptor, having explored digital and stop motion animation, as well as having worked in wood, plaster, stone, bronze, and a variety of other materials sculpturally. Both of these disciplines are especially human-centric arts. A sculpture is something monumental. It is deliberate, and to explore a surface’s finish, toolmarks, material, joinery or anything else is to explore the person which made it; it is a self-contained consciousness. Animation, likewise, is the practice of expressing life through motion. It is the forging of animacy; the language of the living. These two things combine into something beautifully human, expressive and ready to be flawed.

   In this I aim to revolutionize stop motion animations through the use of sculptural techniques and digital fabrication, but also push the boundaries of fluidity in sculpture, crafting pieces which feel rife with movement even when stationary. I am drawn to raw materials and the potential which lies within unfinished surfaces. The building blocks of our world, I see them as a love letter to the ordinary and a statement of the beauty that can be found in the mundane.  My work is an expression of life- the spark of life which lies within materials expressed through human motion and emotion. I feature myself in my work, and wish to be known through it; my work is about experimentation and exploration of myself and what’s around me. I want the time which I take in my craft to be evident, and sometimes I want that time to be the point.