Headlands Center for the Arts

Artist Statement

The work I make is an exploration of the Othered. I often replace the queer, trans, Jewish body with mushrooms and references to mycology as a way to point back towards the 1938 Nazi propaganda children’s book Der Gifpilz (The Poisonous Mushroom.) Here, I am considering an Otherness that is inherently linked to its in/visibility, drawing threads between these communities that are linked by shared politics of distinction (a marked, self-isolating and aestheticized Otherness,) assimilation (relational passing and legibility,) and violent marginalization (histories of genocide, contemporary lethal targeting, epigenetic transmission of trauma.) These pieces explore the possibilities of expansive embodiment through a figuration that is both liminal and uncanny in form and makeup. In a parallel practice, I utilize rituals objects and conceptual ornamentation to imagine the possibilities in mythologizing the trans body. By materializing queer and trans and Jewish rituals I am exploring the proliferation of life in the face of extreme marginalization.

While at Headlands

While at Headlands, I plan to explore landscape and direct observation of nature to expand my interest in mycology. I intend to continue expanding the scale of my work, finding new and exciting ways to work around equipment and space limitations and allowing myself to become immersed in the objects I produce. I hope to dive more deeply into my drawing and painting practice that has accompanied my sculpture, and I intend to find new ways to let these material processes bleed into each other.