I am an artist—to the great surprise of both myself and those who know me best. Unlike creatives with a childhood steeped in drawing or crafts, my decision to pursue formal training in painting as a young adult defied my early socialization. As a child, the caring adults in my life praised my precocious writing abilities and noted my interest in science. Though I made some rudimentary forays into cartooning, by my preteen years I was convinced that my drawing abilities were deficient and often refused to engage with the arts.
But things change. I very nearly failed the ninth grade. Sensing that elite academic achievements were slipping out of reach, I turned my attention to design, creative technology, and marketing. These early explorations in applied arts reintroduced me to visual form-making and ignited my curiosity about art and design history, theory, and criticism. Ultimately, I abandoned design and creative business fields in favor of abstract painting, drawn to the intuitive self-exploration and critical reflection it enables.
My current practice reflects on the very systems that economically and epistemically divide and categorize human endeavors. The forms in my recent drawings allude to microscopic and other scientific imaging techniques, while also suggesting digital circuitry and flows of information. They employ graphic design strategies such as silhouettes, grids, and visual hierarchies, while foiling the logic of visual rhetoric and communication. The abstract forms in my work suggest multiple conceptual themes and narratives, but they never specifically signify just one idea or directly communicate a single message.
In addition to making art, I am an art historian, visual critic, and writer. Broadly speaking, my hybridized career is devoted to critically questioning which knowledges are considered legitimate—and the ways in which anecdote is transformed into argument. These reflections are rooted in my experience as a queer person and shaped by my studies in critical historiography, education, and counter-hegemonic cultural politics.