As an artist, I am intrigued by the materiality of the flesh and believe it to function as a microcosm that points to various aspects of the immaterial human experience. Years before ever becoming a parent, I was already fascinated by the spiritual and cosmic significance of the human belly button and its relationship to the creative act. As a child I pulled at mine, trying to flip it inside out. Years later, as a graduate student, I poured plaster into it regularly, making castings of its negative space. The belly button is the first mark that life leaves on the body; it is a scar that points to our origins.
Many creation myths describe our world as originating from a central point. The Greek term omphalos (navel) can refer to various symbolic centers that are believed to connect the earthly and divine. Just as the human belly button marks our connection to (and inevitable separation from) our mothers, these so-called navels of the world are often associated with myths of cosmic origin, functioning as physical markers of the very sites at which our earth was supposedly born into existence. This symbolism can be found across cultures and religions: ziggurats, temples, holy mountains, the tree of life, and more.
I’m excited and inspired by the navel, umbilical cord, and placenta as both site and symbol of the simultaneity that is embedded in the human experience. Questions of origin and existence are constantly shaping how I think about my creative work, and my belief is that the work of the artist, and perhaps especially the mother artist, is primarily ontological. Just as the human belly button marks both a connection to and a separation from our physical origins, the work that I make points to a similar simultaneity of opposites, referencing the body’s attraction and repulsion but also the immaterial void of human longing in us all.
Before becoming a mother, I thought of attachment and separation as psychologies experienced by the child. I didn’t realize until experiencing it firsthand that, not unlike the blood circulating through the placenta, these psychologies very much go both ways. I’ve been thinking a lot about this entanglement and have been working it out in a recent body of work. At times I imagine vividly that my daughter and I are still connected by this cord. It’s a tug of war. Often, I tug at the cord, longing for my independence from her, and more often than not, she tugs to bring me closer, unwilling to let me exist apart from her.
Cried Milk (2018 - present)
Cried Milk uses data collected from a smartphone app to visualize what it looks like to exclusively breast pump for twelve months. Each visualization represents one month of data. The blue rings represent one hour, the change in value tracks the hours of sunlight and darkness, while the change in saturation indicates broad weather patterns (sunny versus cloudy). The straight lines each represent one day and the yellow circular bursts represent each 30-minute pumping session. The size of each circle correlates to the quantity of milk collected. This project connect to broader cultural conversations about motherhood. As infertility rates continue to skyrocket, many women experience motherhood through a similar, clinical lens. My hope is that this project gives voice to the millions of women who have struggled to become mothers and honor the under-valued labor of motherhood.
The Shape of Your Sounds (2017 - present)
Using audio surveillance technologies provided by a commercial baby monitor, I capture my baby’s cries and translate that data into visual shapes. The sound waves loop back on themselves in a 360-degree rotation. The result is vaguely reminiscent of the shape of a flower; each burst of sound looks like a petal. The initial purpose for this project was to try to find visual patterns that could be more easily interpreted. However, I quickly realized this was a fool’s game; the visual patterns are as indiscernible as his sounds. Therefore, what remains is a visual record of a moment in time; a beautiful reminder of those sleepless nights when the world was comprised of just my son and myself.
Sleep Regression (2016 – 2017)
“Sleep Regression” is a series of intimate works that were painted in the space of nap times and record the moments I watched my son while working in my home studio. The paintings’ small size and blue palette reproduce the video format and color, mimicking the tension between the close, private space of sleep and the distance created by the act of surveillance. The effects are eerie and disturbing images of rest. Lingering in the unconscious state of sleep the baby’s body looks lifeless. Are these representations of a sleeping child or a fetus? These works are thus unusual documents of baby’s first year of life–odd surrogates for the family photo album.
The gray-scale paintings, on the other hand, reinforce the reference to the sonogram, creating layers of distance. The painting series thus portrays an interesting paradox: the increasing stylistic abstraction chronicles my catharsis after years of fertility struggles as I move further away from my past sorrows, yet the works also reflect a turn inward and becomes more specific to my body (womb) and more private. The delineated forms in black, white, and grey look like the thermal imaging of a birth–drapery resembles the uterine wall, a dark ground morphs into a vaginal opening.