Drenched in psychedelic color, oozing resin, and radiating light, my experimental photography acts as a portal into a sparkly, fantasy world
As a child, I remember escaping from reality for hours, building cardboard fairies out of recycled Icee cups and covering the walls of my basement art room with fluorescent paint. I escaped into a world of found materials, color, texture, and pattern and as I continued making, this world developed into my reality. I pull inspiration from the exploration and freedom in craft, specifically craft materials, my music library, and sensory art. Building, painting, and shooting my constructed space to help transport my imagined spaces into the physical world.
A base of chicken wire and spray foam are layered to layer and build-up paint, then assembled materials are applied to create a saturated, fantasy environment. By mixing fine art materials with craft supplies like glitter glue, plaster, and stickers, these constructed landscapes invent a unicorn-gutted, psychedelic pop utopia that delights and intrigues while simultaneously negating the space between the attractive and the repulsive. These spaces celebrate maximalism, fantasy literature, and eclectic materiality.
The work exists as a sculpture, reads as a painting, and, since printing body-sized photographs, acts as an immersive portal which takes viewers on a sugary ride through space into an ephemeral, artificial paradise.
Process video of how I built this magic mountain of plaster, cardboard, resin, sprayfoam, spraypaint, and acrylic based paint. I wanted to construct an alternate reality for my to capture in my photography class. The sculpture was installed in Weil Hall at Washington University in St. Louis.
