UC San Diego

My thesis exhibition, “O World, I cannot hold thee close enough,“ at the University of California, San Diego, is the culmination of artistic work that explores material-based process that abstract the body. My work refers to the idea of a body less contained by examining the structures that define and protect bodies, using materials to represent a continuous line that binds myself to the Other. By the Other I mean the world outside of myself as an individual. Exploring connectedness through material illustrates Chris Tilley’s idea that, people make things, and things make people. The process of connecting materially is a way to understand the present moment. I use dead hair, animal tissue, paper waste, salt, burlap and iconic myths to describe the continuity that binds past and present. I want to create a language without words, the stories and movements that are transmitted through the body over time. Generations of humans reenact a corporeal and visceral connectedness to one another, and in my work, I seek to give these stories form.

In this paper I will describe my relationship to my materials and the tools with which I create my work. I will discuss artists whose way of working describes my own, and various mythologies that contribute to my thinking about art practice. Specifically, I will give insight into the ways that storytelling and materials weave together in my projects, including “Compression” and “Hold My Bones” works.