2021
Acrylic boxes, paper, shredder, plastic document sleeves
It happened while I was standing on the curb: the bags of shredded paper I had just placed on the sidewalk evoked a sudden, deeply personal response. From there, artmaking instincts to explore and manipulate printed material took over and Death & Taxes was created.
The receipts, tax and bank statements, insurances and other documents produced an abundance of thin strips of printed-paper, a history of several lives on paper. The bureaucracy of death is a system that imposes obligations from beyond the grave, further complicating the feelings of grief. The initial installation in 2014 was a one-off event-to celebrate my birthday-several months after my mother had passed.
After several years of holding onto the components of the work, the physical space that the work occupied in my home had become a spatial and emotional burden. Remains is the final transformation of the grieving process. From Death & Taxes the physical remnants, the paper strips, were burned in a fireplace, during an evening celebrating a dear friend’s birthday. The ashes of the three piles of paper, “Mother”, “Uncle”, and “Daughter, Niece, Sister, Friend”, were each encased in small transparent boxes representative of my mother and uncle’s cremations and resting places next to each other in their urns in a mausoleum.
The boxes were accompanied by a small paper shredder installed in a document file holder, inviting viewers to shred their own contributions.
This movement through loss over the years through an artistic presentation has been comforting, healing yet haunting at the same time.
The work was first shown at Dying. as part of DesignTo 2023, a show about death and dying through art and design. Curated and produced by Taboo Health and Health Design Studio/OCAD at Artscape Youngplace.
mixed media collage works on paper
2021-2022
mixed media collage works on paper
2020- ongoing
reflection
upheaval
thresholds
loss
change over time
in progress
9” x 12”
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14” x 11”
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11” x 14”
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12” x 9”
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i’ve been folding origami for as long as i can remember. during early quarantine i created this photographic series using folding techniques for designers for three-dimensional forms used in the world of architecture, product and interior design.
the result is a series of images exploring graphic qualities of paper folding, the beauty of geometry, and the play of shadow and light among the peaks and valleys of the forms.
2020
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Untitled (Rectangle)
Untitled (Pyramid)
Untitled (Square)
Limited edition of 5 prints
17 x 21 inches (image is 16 x 20 inches + 0.5 inch border), signed, dated & numbered at the back
sold out
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Untitled (Face)
Limited edition of 5 prints
and open edition prints of all four images are available in the shop
mixed media collages on plexiglass
approx 6” x 6”
2020
mixed media collage works on paper
2018-2020
click beneath titles to inquire or purchase
sold
sold
sold
purchase
sold
Holding Thrice
Holding Too
Holding On(e)
2017
each 15″ x 22″
acrylic and paper collage on unmounted canvas
Figure with Trousers, Figure with Jacket
diptych, each 8” x 12”
2018
acrylic and paper collage on mounted canvas
SOLD
White Dress with Minaudière
Smoking Popscicles
2018
each approx 11” x11”
acrylic and paper collage on unmounted canvas
a work produced in the Cree Nation of Mistissini during the Mikw Chiyâm art education residency
acrylic and transfers on canvas
60″ x 30″
2016
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edition of 25 prints
22″ x 11″ (w/ 1″ border), archival inks on museo max
sold out
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open edition prints
14″ x 7″ (w/ 0.5″ border), archival inks on museo max
mixed media collages on latex sheeting made during the Listhús artist residency, in Ólafsfjörður, Iceland
2016
skeggjabrekkudalur
17″ x 13″
goðafoss
10″ x 8″
múllakola
10″ x 8″
mývatn
10″ x 8″
Þóroddssaðafjal
10″ x 8″
Ósbrekkufjall
17″ x 13″
Small mixed media collages on sheet latex
2015-2017
On Latex is a small, exploratory series of mixed media collages on sheet latex examining the material and its texture in relationship to skin, sex, and the body.
Derived from the sap of the rubber tree, latex is a milky and sticky substance that is collected, refined, and transformed into a stretchy, resistant material. The material then becomes various objects, among them latex gloves and condoms, designed for protective use. Such protection recalls how the sap works as the tree’s defence mechanism, not only as a poison but also if the tree is injured the sap is released as a barrier that traps insects in its sticky surface.
Latex can also become sheeting, which is then manufactured into clothing, second-skin garments that enhance and fetishize the body. Sheeting is what inspired this series, as a material on which it is difficult to control the outcome of running inks and diluted paints. The material acts as a lesson in giving up control or a desire for the idea of perfection.
From a feature in issue 48 of No More Potlucks art magazine.
The project Death & Taxes is an installation that emerged when I was tasked as the executor of my mother’s estate in 2014. My mother had kept much of her official documentation since the 1980s, and in her home I also came across years of her late brother’s documentation. With the desire to dispose of these, I began to shred.The income taxes, receipts, bank statements, and insurances produced bags and bags of thin strips of history.
Set informally in an empty office space, the installation presented the strips of paper divided into three separate piles on the floor. Like large nests, grave markers, or monuments, each form was filled with the paper representing a single person: “Mother”, “Uncle” and “Daughter, Niece, Sister, Friend” and were placed in separate rooms, as if entering a crypt. Affixed to the walls were a series of official documents and identifiers placed in clear plastic document holders: birth certificate, social insurance card, letter of citizenship, a driver’s license and fragile pieces of paper from the Philippines.
Additionally, two paper shredders were installed. Guests were invited to attend, at a private installation/shredding party where they could cut up their own paper histories.
Although I found the initial one-off presentation of Death & Taxes to be cathartic, I felt compelled to keep the shredded documents, with the intention of sharing this work with a larger audience. But after some time of not being able to do so, the physical space that the work occupied in my home had become a spatial and emotional burden.
A further transformation took place in 2021, to lay this work to rest.
mixed media collages on paper
2013 – 2015
