Artist Statement:

Throughout the millennia, humankind has yearned to connect with the divine. It is in the unfathomable and immense, things greater than ourselves, that we build our faith, whether it be the repeatable predictability of science, an omniscient deity, or even in the eyes of a loved one. My art aims to capture representations of the divine that has given my life anchor - memories of my childhood and of my family that bring me peace and stillness. I aim to enshrine the moments that seem so small, so seemingly insignificant, that they may be difficult to recall yet are integral to our identities.

My work is made in two parts; the heavenly and the worldly.

First, the heavenly half is made from porcelain mixed with various pigments to evoke the quiet luminosity of jade. Each piece is thrown on the wheel then carved to limit its contact with its resting surface to only three points, to make it float as a cloud. Figures of the sky are carved on to the surface of the clay that reveal themselves in the play of light and shadow.

The worldly half is the anchor - physical, weighty, and crude. It is made from reclaimed and impure clay that is slammed on to the ground and hacked at with a blade until it resembles stone. It is rough and unyielding yet it provides a base for its heavenly half.

The two pieces together acknowledge both sides of every experience: our hopes and our disappointments, the rise and fall, sound and silence.

My art draws motifs from gifts given to me by my grandmothers. Physical gifts - ceramics, paintings, jade - things they collected through their lives and passed on to me, and pieces of themselves that now belong within me: their humor, their pride, their place in the world. In my art, I find the divine in the moments of stillness and the spaces in-between. I aim to find familiarity in the unknown and link the fleeting with the immortal; like a piece of the sky you can hold, a moment in the past you can never return to, or a gift from someone loved now lost.

Throughout the millennia, humankind has strived to find a place to rest their faith, whether it be in the repeatable predictability of science

Every foreigner knows what it’s like to live between worlds. Upon leaving our old homes and settling in our new ones, we end up belonging to neither. We are too changed to go back, too alien to belong. So we hold our memories close and whisper them to ourselves like a prayer said in private. 

My art aims to immortalize memory into objects with a heavenly lightness. It serves to enshrine moments so small, so seemingly insignificant, that they may be difficult to recall yet are integral to our identities.

My work is made in two parts; the heavenly and the worldly.

The heavenly - memory enshrined, faint as starlight - is made from porcelain mixed with various pigments to evoke the properties of jade. Each piece is thrown on the wheel then carved to limit its contact with its resting surface to only three points, to make it float as a cloud. Figures are carved on to the surface of the clay, faint so that they are revealed in sunlight, mere impressions.

The worldly half is an anchor - physical, weighty, and crude. It is made from reclaimed and impure clay that is slammed on to the ground and hacked at with a blade until it resembles stone. It is rough. It is unyielding. Yet it exists in partnership with its heavenly half.

My art draws motifs from gifts given to me by my grandmothers - actual gifts: ceramics, paintings, jade, things they collected through their lives and passed on to me, and pieces of themselves that now belong within me: their humor, their pride, their place in the world.

In my art, I find familiarity in the unknown and link the fleeting with the immortal and the immense; like a piece of the sky you can hold, a moment in the past you can never return to, or a gift from someone loved now lost.