“...it is not news that we live in a world where beauty is unexplainable and suddenly ruined and has it’s own routines. We are often far from home in a dark town and our griefs are difficult to translate into a language understood by others.”
— Charles Smith, The Meaning of Birds
Window Exhibition at Roots and Culture
November 19 - December 18, 2021
Presented at Chicago Artist Coalition October 1 - November 11, 2021
This series was made March 2020 while in quarantine during an Artist Residency in Japan. Concurrent with the residency, I was also enrolled in an online Poisonous Plant Medicine course. With the rise of COVID-19 and daily mask wearing, during my time in isolation, I reflected on the internal masks we all wear. What do we hide from? Who do we wish to be?
Collecting dried or fallen leaves and flowers, I would amuse myself in my tiny room, placing them over my face like a mask. As we wear our physical masks to protect ourselves and others against the virus, these harmless plant masks symbolize protection against the digital versions of deadly plants. A twisted, whimsical play on the parallels of safety and toxicity.
There is an overpopulation of us.
We are selfish.
We are self important.
The earth is slowly dying.
We are healers.
We are killers.
“For your safety: what kind of mask do you wear?” is a part of Quince Magazine’s Issue Three: Winter 2020/21.
An honoring of animals and death.
During a Artist Residency at The Fish Factory - The Creative Centre of Stöðvarfjörður in Iceland, June 2019, I spent the month practicing taxidermy with birds and minks.
Documenting my menstrual cycles by free bleeding on various types of folded paper. 2016 - 2020. More at www.instagram.com/bloodblot
