Artist Statement
I am a sculptor and installation artist working primarily in ceramics, approaching the medium both practically and poetically. My practice draws from material exploration, personal experience, and conceptual research to examine how objects and spaces carry cultural meaning. I am particularly interested in ceramics’ deep historical role and its capacity to embody both utility and reverence, allowing it to shift between the everyday and the symbolic.
My work explores the intersections of hope, fear, and communal ritual within systems such as sports, labor, and evangelicalism. I examine how these institutions shape personal and collective identities, often leveraging belief to sustain social, political, and economic power. At the same time, I am drawn to their ability to foster spaces of communion and personal expression through shared experience and ritual.
Informed by my upbringing in Appalachia and my own experiences with physical labor and injury, I investigate the construction and instability of masculinity—particularly identities rooted in physical ability, endurance, and tradition. As these structures shift or erode, I consider the cultural and emotional consequences of their absence, as well as the ways vulnerability, sensitivity, and connection persist within and beyond them.
Through installation and sculpture, I use materials and forms that complicate hierarchies and juxtapose refinement with utility, fragility with strength, and reverence with critique. By drawing parallels between institutions like sports and religion, my work blurs the boundaries of what constitutes a sacred or communal space. Ultimately, I aim to reflect on the human need for connection and belief, while questioning how these desires are shaped, sustained, and often exploited.
While materials and processes vary, I consider a material’s role in the world practically and symbolically when beginning any artwork. For example, my last exhibition incorporated recycled shipping pallets in the form of a scoreboard, upright and covered in crushed bituminous coal, and disassembled in the form of bleachers cast in porcelain from silicone molds of pallet planks. While my practice used to require me to handbuild intricate, large-scale sculptures, changes in my physical ability and studio access have guided my practice towards moldmaking. Using plaster and silicone molds allow for parts to be replicated in a host of materials, syncing materials to form and concept as needed. Additionally, molds allow for my projects to be scaled by way of outsourced labor. Working with parts and found objects, also allows for my work to shift form to create new artworks, accommodate to many spaces, and be site responsive.