I am interested in the depiction of social interactions and societal commentary through experimental, non-linear narratives created by using pre-existing source imagery in a collage/drawing/printmaking hybrid process. Collage—as a stand-alone technique or as an embellishment—has a long tradition within graphic arts, especially with respect to the surrealist compositions of Max Ernst. While I admire the traditional applications of this technique, my work focuses on pushing the traditional boundaries of collage, combining it with digital drawing and hand printing techniques in such a way to create images that appear to be “unbroken,” with no obvious delineations that point to the disparate sources of the original images. I draw from sources as varied as the Old Masters and Victorian-era popular imagery—from Albrecht Durer and Gustave Dore to clip art—to create seamless prints that belie their heterogeneous origins. This process is, as I see it, a form of “image sustainability,” a recycling of past imagery into new forms that combine digital technologies with hand-made processes of etching, sewing, and chine-collé. The resulting prints, from the series titled Mystorical Constructions, have prompted viewers to wonder not just how they were made, but when—are they historical artifacts or contemporary fictions? 

Both monumental and intimate in scale, the historic images I re-purpose are seductive. They encourage in viewers a nostalgia for fairy tales and whimsical stories, and yet they also generate disquieting and open-ended narratives that serve as a form of “stealth” political and social commentary. Bird-women peer over an infirm patient in the woods; are they caregivers or life-takers? In another, a woman and child are adrift in a stormy sea; are they fleeing an unknown horror or escaping to safety? Exploring themes of monstrosity and hybridity—both in concept and execution—my work investigates the modern experiences of identity, fear and desire filtered through a historical lens.