Lost&Found International Ceramics Exhibition, Bangkok

My work explores human identity through transformation and hybrid forms, across a variety of mediums. I reference global mythologies including American, Mexican and European folktales as well as deeply personal memories embedded in childhood. Lately I’ve become particularly interested in the way monster stories explode cultural narratives and celebrate distortions and fears. My latest series of works was inspired by the giant monsters of my childhood including the sci-fi Godzilla, the rarely witnessed Big Foot, and animal/human-hybrids such as the Wolf-Man. 

The Mega-monsters of my childhood were terrifying, grotesque, and thrilling containing a darkness which fascinated me, drew me in and repelled me at the same time. Through the plasticity of clay, I’ve re-envisioned aspects of these creatures into doll-like mini monsters, evoking nostalgia, and a sense of loss. The works incorporate fragmentation, movement and evoke melancholy, decay, and brokenness.  Godzilla Within decontextualizes the King of the Monsters into a young, female/reptilian hybrid, bearing resemblance to both the animal and human, monster and child. Big Foot Melting references the legend known in Native American traditions as Sasquatch, hidden inside snow-covered mountains ready to attack the vulnerable. Once feared in childhood and larger than life, I re-imagined the giant white Big foot as shrunken version of its former self, melting away in a increasingly complex world threatened by climate change…reminding us that nothing is stable, not even our mythologies.