Technology
The concept of the individual within society is at the core of my work. How does the individual process and manage the overwhelming influence of the collective? My work dances the line between separation and amalgamation – should we become a part of our surroundings, or should we reject everything, including our physical forms?
Unhealthy ideals besiege our society and have a powerful impact on how an individual assesses their self-worth. We are immersed in images of “perfect” people and try to conform our lives to these false ideals. The line between our self imposed value and those values pressed upon us begins to blur at a very young age. The goal of my work is to illuminate the vast number of “social norms” underpinning our negative self-image. Most people are not able to strip away what is not important in their lives until they face a personal tragedy. I want to challenge everyone to face what might be holding them back from seeing their full self-worth.
I personally break my work into different struggles. Appearance, Reach, Reconstructed Reality, and Technology. Each of these categories deals with a different struggle the individual faces while confronting society. For example:
Reach: Is a collection of work that deals with how the individual strives to move forward though their life and thus society. It broadly deals with how we aim for a specific goal and the struggles that we might face surround us on the way.
Reconstructed Reality: This work dwells on the struggle to retain our individuality as industry strengthens its grip on us. With social media taking a bigger role in society, and in our lives, how do we separate ourselves from this machine?
Appearance: This group of pieces attends to how the individual deals with their physical form under society’s dictations. Do we buckle and starve ourselves to look like the model on the cover of a magazine or do we appreciate our differences?
Technology: This group of work deals with how reliant we are on the internet. It also speaks about the troubles that form with the dependance of social media. The current political climate would not be in this state without social media. So many people are hiding behind their screens and saying things that they never would say face to face. Where does that put our society, and how does the individual negotiate that space.
With my artistic practice I aim to bring these unreasonable standards and their ramifications on someone’s self-worth to light. I have created a body of work utilizing glass, ceramics, and metal that are interactive and cause the viewer to think about their self worth as a direct response to facing these pieces. I want the observer to realize their negative self worth is only an arbitrary opinion that society has been placed on their shoulders and not true to reality. I hope that my work helps the viewer become more at peace with themselves and perpetuate that peace to others.