The One You Feed, 2017, ceramic

I enjoy finding parallels back to youth in my interactions as an adult, tracing the lines of childhood imagery to create an illustration of something from a darker place. I use children in my sculptures to build an unsettling and surreal landscape where the viewer is both comforted and disturbed by the interactions between my subjects. I hope to lure observers in with friendly colors and playful characters, bringing them in closer before delivering an unsettling detail. I relate to this tension both now as an adult, and in memories from my youth. While it’s often conveyed through gentle colors and innocence, childhood also grows in darker places, between the fairytale and the nightmare. As children, we hurt each other groundlessly, bullying or pinching to fulfill some strange, wild urge we cannot connect to with ration. As adults, we compete and defend ourselves, at times navigating our interactions with teeth discreetly bared. I believe these dark corners exist within us all as we navigate our adult lives, like a curious whisper we can only subconsciously hear.

Sometimes, I make something because I simply feel like making it. I’m often surprised when a sculpture, seemingly coming from nowhere, finds a way to link back to my darker curiosities. And, sometimes, a sculpture of a rabbit sitting quietly with his thoughts is simply as he seems.