Artist Statement:
At its core, my genetic-based work is an exploration of how science filters our cultural understanding of nature. Through the lens of personal experience I find myself reexamining a familiar dialectic between nature and culture but from a contemporary context. Genetics is particularly well suited to this pursuit since its research generates palpable implications for us at both the individual and cultural levels.
In Encode/Decode, I explore the psychological effects of what it means to know more than ever before about our genetic makeup. At the dawn of the personal genomics revolution, we have more data about ourselves than ever, opening up the age old struggle between fate and free will. In many of these portraits I tie my predisposition to skin cancer to not only myself but my family, questioning the implicaitons of knowing our predispositions to disease.
1. We Pass These Things Along, 2008-2013,
Archival Inkjet Print, 22” x 27.5”
2. We Pass These Things Along, detail
3. What I must Wear Now, 2008,
Archival Inkjet Print, 36” x 20”
4. What I must Wear Now, detail
5. From Father to Me, 2008-2014, Archival Inkjet Print, 22” x 27.5”
6. From Me to You, 2008-2015,
Archival Inkjet Print, 22” x 27.5”
7. From Me to You, detail
8. Hamstrung, 2007-2011,
Unique Archival Inkjet Print and Paint Marker, 17” x 21”
9. Short Circuit, 2007-2011,
Unique Archival Inkjet Print and Paint Marker, 17” x 21”