I Hope You Feel the Sun on Your Wings, 2024.
Video Installation on wooden structure
71 x 43 x 37 inches
I Hope You Feel the Sun on Your Wings is an homage to my late grandmother. The sculpture is composed of emptied picture frames that once lined the walls of my grandparents’ house, where they held photographs chronicling the lives of their children and grandchildren. Divested of their contents, the frames are reconfigured into a structure evocative of a birdcage.
The bird serves as a symbolic surrogate for my grandmother, who was an avid singer and longtime member of her church choir. My grandparents owned a pair of blue budgerigars for as long as I can remember, and after my grandmother passed, my grandfather tended to these birds with the same devotion he had shown her in her final years. During our visits in the last years of her life – years marked by a battle with Alzheimer's disease and ongoing mental illness – my grandmother communicated mostly through song, bursting into melody whenever she felt moved. In those moments, music seemed to offer her a certain amount of freedom. After she died, the birds’ chirping filled the house in much the same way – carrying on her spirit through song.
This sculpture acts as both a monument and meditation – an offering for a woman who experienced a great deal of trauma, in the hope that her spirit might exist peacefully, finally unburdened.
Installation at Wassaic Project as part of “Tall Shadows in Short Order”, 2024.
Installation view at Jimei x Arles as part of “A Hole to the Water”, 2024.
Installation view at Jimei x Arles as part of “A Hole to the Water”, 2024.
Installation view at Jimei x Arles as part of “A Hole to the Water”, 2024.
Mama Gone, 2019.
Mama Gone (Excerpt).
Single channel HD video with sound, 03:04 min, 2019.
Mama Gone begins with an image my husband took of me when we were newlyweds. In the image we were on vacation and unburdened by responsibility or children. The image represents a period of time that is distant and lost.
Mama Gone is an experiment to see how my son would respond to the image.
Exercizes in Breath, 2019.
Exercises in Breath (Excerpt)
Two-channel HD video installation, 02:21min, 2019.
Exercises in Breath depicts my body breathing at what would have been 38 weeks of a failed pregnancy, and again at 38 weeks in my first pregnancy. In one instance, I use the air to fill my empty belly. In the other instance, I struggle to find room to fill my belly and lungs with air.
Yield to Them, 2017.
Yield to Them (Excerpt)
Single-channel HD video, 05:16 min, 2017.
Yield to Them is a reinterpretation of the gestures of my son’s hands made while nursing. These actions, which mix tenderness, softness, desperation, and want, embody the needs of my family and my relationship as a mother and wife. These actions are re-performed by my husband.
For One Night Only, 2015.
For One Night Only (Video Stills). Multi-channel HD video installation, Infinite loop, 2015.
For One Night Only is a multi-channel video installation based on intimate performances. Filmed in transient hotel rooms, the gestural videos grapple with the expectations of intimacy and their potential failures. The videos feature choreography of gestures that are playful in their combination of the awkward, the mundane, and the sexual. It is a series of moments in a romantic relationship during a time of confusion and transition.
For One Night Only. Installation view from In Longing at CUE Art Foundation, 2021.
How to Fall in Love and For One Night Only. Installation view from Camera Work, 2015.
For One Night Only, Installation view from Camera Work, 2015.