Artist Statement

In my practice, I have been investigating bodily memory to reckon with personal identity and chronic illness. My work serves as an attempt to explore and challenge the displacement I feel in my own body. This displacement stems from experiences throughout my life where the body became a barrier between me and the ability to make decisions for myself. My work aims to reclaim autonomy through representations of these experiences. When I work with metal, the material demands a type of labor that feels ritualistic. It is a transaction between my body and the material. The heating and smashing of metal are metamorphic, not unlike how the body transforms during trauma. Metal, when under heat and pressure, becomes new. A new vessel for memory. Here, the broken thing becomes a testament to the resilience of the body rather than something invaluable. Changed and reassembled by my hands, this labor makes me the catalyst for these observable metamorphoses.