Drawing on ecofeminist and new materialist perspectives, my small works explore our social and ecological relationship to land. The layered paintings engage botanical, mineral, and synthetic inks that challenge a myth of mastery and consider the possibility of material and plant sentience. Much of my work grows from embodied, multi-year research in my community garden allotment in West Hartford, CT. Engaging in a conceptual mapping practice, and in contrast to land surveys that take a drone’s eye view, I sit on the ground amidst the more-than-human elements. Assuming synesthesia, I capture the sounds, smells, tastes, and feelings of the ecological landscape.
In addition to making ink from my dye garden, I collect garden fencing, netting, and detritus found on site and then process it through the etching press, making monoprints that create an indexed schemata. Combining paintings and prints, I consider the ways in which we have imposed control and power over the landscape, cutting it into plots and property and creating a constant tension between what’s natural and not natural. Through sewing, which is both a violent puncture and a reparative suture, I ponder our current time of climate crisis, of action and inaction, and of the ongoing beauty of our surroundings. As Robin Wall Kimmerer says, “Even a wounded world holds us.”
Plot #11 (2024), 20” x 21”, monoprints, watercolor, amaranth and walnut ink
Pleasure #1 (2024), 8.5” x 13”, monoprints, acorn, watercolor, acrylic ink, thread
Pleasure #2 (2024), 9.5” x 13.5” marigold, sulfur cosmos, watercolor, acrylic ink, thread
Pleasure #4 (2024), 10.5” x 15”, monoprints, coreopsis, sulfur cosmos, amaranth ink, thread
Plot #10 (2024), 14.75″ x 23″, monoprints, fresh indigo dyed paper, ink from guns, indigo watercolor, acrylic ink, thread
Pleasure #3 (2024), 10.5″ x 12.5″, monoprints, watercolor and acrylic inks
Inverted Plot #22 (2024), 12.75 x 13″, monoprints, watercolor and acrylic inks, walnut ink
Plot #12 (2024), 8.5″ x 11.5″, monoprints, watercolor and acrylic inks