This page is a private resource for external reviewers to view materials related to my application for tenure and promotion at Florida State University. All links will connect to other pages on my artist website, or exhibition websites hosted by the respective gallery or museum. Please click to go back to this page or use the URL provided.
INTRODUCTION
As an Assistant Professor in the Department of Art at Florida State University I have maintained a robust national and international research practice while currently serving as the Printmaking Area Head and teaching seminar and studio courses in the printmaking area and graduate programs. My work exemplifies the interdisciplinary and media-fluid mission of the Department of Art at Florida State University while retaining its center in the contemporary discourse of printmaking. This page concentrates on my creative research and public presentations. Additional information about my teaching record and service to the Department of Art and national printmaking organizations can be viewed in the Academic CV and Teaching Philosophy links below.
LINKS
Solo Exhibition Documentation + Info
RESEARCH
“Surface Tension” – Solo Exhibition – Alabama Contemporary Art Center – Mobile, AL – 2023
My artwork addresses how bodies are quantified and assigned value. Within a range of formal strategies, from printmaking, ceramics, drawing, mixed media sculpture, installation and video, I depict ways that medical diagnosis places bodies into hierarchies that affect how people feel internally and see themselves in society. This is informed by my own experience as a queer HIV positive person navigating health industries and governmental oversight of HIV positive people.
In my sculptural works, I create and re-create new and existing health-related media in ways that emphasize physicality. In my tiled floor works I make faux-ceramic tiles with resin coated foamcore. These counterfeit ceramic surfaces act as a form of material drag, as well as an aestheticized space for health-related media to displayed upon. Tiled surfaces are recurring devices within the work. I associate tiled surfaces with bathrooms, kitchens, and hospitals; spaces of bodily maintenance. My hybrid ceramic works combine hand-built clay forms and screenprinting through a hydrographic process. Printed images are fused to the ceramic clay “bodies” as a material and process-based metaphor of the ways that ideologically flattened information and data become distorted when applied to physical bodies in the real world.
In printed and two-dimensional works, I use the structure of the book, space of the page, or painting, as a paste-up-board for collage. Images of partial and fragmented references of bodies, domestic objects, and institutional architecture are recurring themes that reference how ideas of health, gender, sexuality and identity are constructed from disparate sources that can be rearranged.
Print / Ceramic Hybrids
Installation view from “Interoception” solo exhibition at Centre d’essai en art imprime (ARPRIM) Montreal, QC – April 2024
In this ongoing body of wall-mounted hybrid print and ceramic works, I use a hydrographic process to create “flat” images or texts that become dimensional and physical once they wrap around the contours of the ceramic clay “body.” I see this as a metaphor for the ways that information is made physical through reception and participation. This is also a continuation of previous research examining the sculptural potential of printmaking, and a bridge between the artistic traditions of printmaking and ceramics.
“Heart Fruit” – Hydrographic Screenprint on Glazed Ceramic – 15in X 21in X 3in – 2022
“X-ray Hand, Knife, Set, Coin Toss” – Hydrographic Screenprint on Glazed Ceramic – 19in X 35in X 3in – 2024
“Freedom of Movement: Conductor’s Marks” – Hydrographic Screenprint on Glazed Ceramic – 19in X 22in X 3in – 2024
“Bite Wound” – Hydrographic Relief Print on Ceramic – 16in X 22in X 3in – 2024
“Genome Tablet” – Hydrographic Screenprint on Ceramic – 19in X 21in X 4in – 2023
“Cheating Death” – Hydrographic Screenprint on Ceramic – 23in X 26in X 2in – 2024
“Green C” – Hydrographic Screenprint on Ceramic – 15in X 21in X 2in – 2023
“Gorge” – Hydrographic Screenprint on Ceramic – 16in X 19in X 3in – 2024
Print / Ceramic Process
This series of hydrographic print and ceramic artworks are created through a combination of methodical construction of object and image juxtoposed with unplanned variables that occur during the hydrodipping process.
After a form is bisque and glaze-fired, I then respond to its form, analyzing how a 2D printed image will overlay upon its surface. I then create a multi-layered screenprint that is printed in reverse order on sheets of acetate, as well as hydrographic film. The printed images on acetate exist as a separate, but related printed edition. The hydrographic print is then floated on a bath of water and the ceramic object is submerged into the image, fusing it to the dimensional surface of the ceramic object.
Non-Toxic Hydrographic Ceramics Workshop – L’imprimerie Printmaking Center, Montreal QC – April 2024
Images from a workshop where I adapted my screenprinted hydrographic ceramic techniques to be non-toxic. I am currently doing research on how to translate these novel processes to be more environmentally friendly.
Tiled Floor Works
In my tiled floor works I make counterfeit versions of ceramics using hand-cut foamcore with several applications of resin and dye. These faux-ceramic surfaces are ceramics in drag, mimicking the properties of another material. Tiled surfaces are used in sites of bodily maintenance, such as bathrooms, kitchens, and hospitals. Functional tile act as a barrier to protect the architecture from the wet activities that people do to maintain themselves (cooking, cleaning, bathing etc.) These fake ceramic “sites” become framing devices for printed materials and music related to the depiction of health and wellness. These aestheticized tiled stages emphasize how the understanding of our own bodies through health-related media describe the function and metrics of healthy and sick bodies. This information influences how we act and live.
“Lab Work: Urine Color Spectrum” – Foamcore, Resin, Ink, Xerox printouts of the artist’s Blood and Urine Analysis – 10ft X 11ft – 2024
The resin tints used to coat the foamcore tiles were derived from the spectrum of possible urine colors depending on hydration levels. The yellow prints are laserjet printouts of my own blood and urine analysis. I see the piece as an internal form of self-portraiture. Instead of depicting the form of a body, the data in the lab results instead portray its normal and abnormal functioning.
“Oval Window” – Foamcore, Resin, Ink, Bluetooth Speakers – 8ft X 11ft – 2024
The Oval Window is a small membrane that connects the middle and inner ear. This membrane is responsible for turning vibration into nerve impulses that our brain interprets as sound. Upon the oval tiled floor rests two bluetooth speakers. The audio is a sung adaptation of the William Blake poem “Nurse’s Song” that I have adapted to music. I sing the song while submerging my head underwater to perform the text like it is moving inside and outside of the body.
“Missing Blood Types: Chocolate” – Foamcore, Resin, Ink, Wallgreens Digital Fleece Printed Blanket – 9ft X 6ft – 2023
The blanket image comes from a web ad campaign by several international corporations called “Missing Blood Types” whereeach of the letters A,B, and O were removed from their respective company logos. The campaign was meant to draw awareness to the need for blood donors. Through donation the missing blood type letters have the potential to complete the company logo, implicating the viewer/consumer’s body as a site of corporate benevolance
“Lab Work: Easter Candy” – Foamcore, Resin, Ink, Laserjet Printouts of the Artist’s Blood and Urine Analysis – 2020
Documentation from the solo exhibition “Kidney-Shaped Ear” at Parlour and Ramp Gallery, Chicago, IL – 2023
Printmaking
The entirety of my interdisciplinary work relates to the foundation of my practice in printmaking. The process of constructing an image through matrices and layering are conceptually related to bodily abstraction and the ways that humans are categorized into heirarchies of value. The prints depict bodily-related forms and functions that are in a state of becoming abstract. Systemized grids and tension between biomorphic and geometric forms are recurring visual devices.
Although I deploy several print processes, my foundation in screenprinting, graphic design and applied printmaking (posters, record packaging, merch etc.) echoes through all of my images. The physical, interpersonal networks that are inherent to print media are depicted through collage, fracturing and repetitions within the images.
“Oval #3: Mouth, Nose, Chin, Foot, Fingers” – Monoprint – 2023
This series of monoprints were created by using direct ink impressions from my body that were cut and collaged before printing. The work relates to the abstraction and reduction of physical bodies when described in the context of diagnostic medicine
“Oval #3: Ear, Fingers, Elbow, Butt, Foot, Penis, Testicles” – Monoprint – 2023
“Lady Barracuda and Utopia Textures” – Letterpress and Screenprint – 17in X 21in – 2021
The vertical forms on the left are cross sections of two different fleshlight sex toy models.
“This One Weird Trick” – Lithograph, Screenprint and Digital Print Collage – 23in X 17in – 2020
Digital collaged images are health-related internet banner ads.
“Manic” – Screenprint – 10in X 20in – 2022
“Depressive” – Screenprint – 10in X 20in – 2022
“Gorge” – Screenprint – 18in X 22in – 2022