Maladaptive Environments is a self-reflective exploration of the experiences of children and young adults faced with unstable, traumatic, or abusive domestic environments. Sculpture, installation, and performance art are used to construct interior spaces which embody the dichotomy between fear and hope often essential to coping mechanisms utilized by children. 

Nightmares, broken dishes, senseless arguments, blanket forts, and misplaced nostalgia fuel the imagery used to communicate the feelings of helplessness, paranoia, and the wavering hope that riddle these early experiences. Traditional processes such as moldmaking and woodworking are combined with unconventional practices such as burning, quilting, and breaking dishes. Through detailed craft and controlled destruction, my work utilizes the duality between fragility and brutality to reflect the precarious shift between stable and unstable mental states. The end result is work that is conceptually unnerving yet visually engaging.   

The presence of the human figure is integral due to the work’s relationship to memory and reconciliation.  Through performance; gesture, action, and presentation of the body are used to communicate complex nonverbal reactions and interactions. Performance allows me to reconcile with memories and current emotions through the terrifying, invigorating, and ultimately cathartic act of making art in the presence of the viewer.

Stay away good morning is an immersive installation space included within the exhibition Maladaptive Environments. Viewers who choose to enter the yellow children's door find a dark, cool, and calm atmosphere. The scent of damp grass, the sound of crickets chirping, and the flickering candlelight eminating from each of the upside down lamps floating throughout the space transport the viewer to a space that lies within the artist's memory, far away .

Some viewers nervously peek in from the doorway, but exploration is encouraged. Other's take off their shoes to feel the grass between their toes. Some wrap themsleves in blankets and close their eyes. One of the quilts in the space has a note "To Ayla on your first birthday, Love Grandma." Others find the red plastic flashlight and explore further. The artist's memories, journal excerpts from childhood, are memorialized on the quilt that creates the blanket fort, the quintessential childhood safe haven. Quotes that relate to self loathing, abuse, and fear on the outside of the fort and quotes relating to escapism, creativity, and hope on the inside..

The performance art piece, Imitation, consists of a series of actions and reactions to the aggression present in the environment. Viewers are invited to listen along to an audio track of jumbled screaming on headphones as they watch the artist engage in a series of repetitive actions, moving against footprints burned into the carpet, and methodically smashing pieces from a series of doll-sized teacups. Afterwards, sweeping up the pieces in their hands and hiding them in a box hidden underneath the bed, before returning to their original place on a chair in the middle of the room, and beginning the actions again. 

The presence of the human figure is integral due to the work’s relationship to memory and reconciliation.  Through performance; gesture, action, and presentation of the body are used to communicate complex nonverbal reactions and interactions. Performance allows the artist to reconcile with memories and current emotions through the terrifying, invigorating, and ultimately cathartic act of making art in the presence of the viewer.