My work is about connecting to the divine through everyday objects. I make videos, sculptures, and printed matter using everyday materials and recognizable consumer products to depict my spiritual cosmology. This work began with a personal need and developed into a rich method for engaging others with the fraught and weighty subject of spirituality through humor, allegory, and sincerity.
In 2013, a sequence of events, including the unexpected deaths of two people close to me and the birth of my first son, sent me into a space of spiritual seeking. Without a religious background but feeling this fundamental need to connect to something greater, I began to use my studio as a space to explore some of these ideas. Since then, I’ve aimed to depict my relationship to the sacred through a liberating and non-dogmatic practice, using the materials most available to me.
My relationship with the divine is rich with sincerity, humor, and doubt. It is both silly and earnest and can best be articulated through ingredients like zip ties, styrofoam, and 3D modeling software. These materials provide an approachable entry point into subjects often seen as heavy and impenetrable. I want my audience to see something like a sculpture of the universe made from corrugated cardboard, experience a moment of transcendence with it, and still recognize it as corrugated cardboard. In using these recognizable materials, I aim to liberate my subject matter from an aesthetic of solemnness, elevate the commonplace, and make art that is relatable.
Most recently I have focused on the intersection of spirituality and materialism. During the covid lockdown of spring 2020 I began using consumer products from around my house as my subject matter. These objects included things that I used for mental stimulation, physical movement, and spiritual comfort and indeed many of these items are designed to operate at the intersections of mind, body, and spirit. For example, my iphone contains my notes app (mind), exercise app (body) and meditation app (spirit), though ironically makes me feel more disconnected from all of these things the more I engage with it. With an ambivalent relationship towards new-age spirituality and capitalism this work is both earnest and critical; with equal parts sincerity and doubt.