STATEMENT

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I was twenty years old when my mother left my father. My world, where my parents would forever be a coupled support, was shattered. From that moment I have been trying to stitch the fragments back together, to embrace the discord, to make my life whole. The differences between my parents would become my impetus for art making. My father, an engineer, has moved through life with a strict set of rules. Thus, my use of grid as a structure to create order and protect me from feeling crazy. My mother, a creative feminist in a conservative Midwestern town where to be those things was almost criminal, gave me permission to make experimental, imperfect art. It’s the convergence of these opposing influences that inform my work.

 

My studio practice is process-driven and draws on my Finnish heritage, architectural forms, land formations, and the effects of accidents in life and art. Materials include paint, canvas, thread, hydrocal, and bronze. I don’t have a preconceived vision of my final product; the meaning emerges over time. In my current method, I work on a few pieces at a time on the floor with canvas and pigments, building forms and allowing the personal to merge with the formal.

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