Oh my God, I think I’m a feminist! It was some sort of epiphany when I came to this realization. I did not have the ability to truly explore all depths of my artistic nature prior to this point in my life. All of my art had been governed by the constraints of academia, and I turned out assignment after assignment without much thought on the theme or my body of work as a whole. What I did not notice over these years of schooling was that much of my work had a commonality: femininity and the social perspectives on women in contemporary society, more specifically the roles of woman and the female body in representation.

This realization made me develop these ideas further by continuing to analyze the place of women in modern culture and the social constraints that are placed upon women today. Through this body of work I am interrogating social mores, female expectations, inhibitions, and the victimization that woman go through daily. These issues include body image, marriage, family life, and other facets of feminine life. Women are expected to be perfect, thin, sexy, and fashionable as well as to clean and cook to satisfy their man. Women who do not fit these stereotypical roles are seen as fat, ugly, lazy, masculine among other derisions; constantly judged by men and other women for their actions and behaviors that may or may not be overtly feminine. These ideals and expectations are outdated and I am speaking out against them.

Within this work, I am positioning woman and her place in a new world- one where she has complete control over herself, over her life, her body, her sexuality and her ideas. This is a commentary on American expectations of both men and women, conjured over years of oppression.

The process of creating this work revolves around the self, more specifically myself. I have the narcissistic desire and love of my own female form when appropriate. Using my own body and experiences within my work exemplifies the woman in contemporary society and is the common theme binding these pieces together. In addition, I incorporate domestic objects that are traditionally feminine, including jars, ironing boards, and pearls among other devices. Materially, I use these domestic elements along with my body as image within videos, photographs, multimedia, combined objects, as well as the traditional technique of bronze casting. Much of my work is performative in nature, whether it be during the process of creating or in the work’s presentation. It is this process and performance that defines the completed work. At times, the process is even more important, emotionally and conceptually, than the object.