MONSTER FACTORY (2020)
Featured at:
Cloud Crusher | Hopkins Hall Gallery | Columbus, OH | April 2020
The COVID-19 outbreak transformed behemoth aspirations into fun-sized monstrosities. Combining the ‘feminine’ art of embroidery with a bubbling mass of plush and illustration, lines between ‘natural’ and ‘person-made’ become entangled. Just as I amalgamate myself with men's boxers, sultry lip gloss, and a soon-to-be-stitched chest, my beasts are born as tethered smatterings of gendered language, material, and imagery. They grow and combine and overtake one another, dripping off their framing. As I continue these experiments, I ask the viewer to consider: Should we become the monster they claim us to be? My work asks, why not?
TAPES (2020)
Featured at:
North Louisiana Gay & Lesbian Film Festival | Robinson Film Center | Shreveport, LA | September 2020 (Upcoming)
Louisiana LGBT+ Film Festival | LGBT Community Center of New Orleans | New Orleans, LA | July 2020
Mad Royal Film Festival | Wexner Center for the Arts | Columbus, OH | April 2020
Rejecting tactics of theatrical identity, TAPES welcomes you to the family of two partners recontextualizing life experiences after pursuing gender transition. TAPES records over material that engages with gender expectations, specifically animated children’s films. While recording over this material, there is a literal transition between appropriated and original content, which is digitized and sewn together with archival footage. After these clips have been collected, they’re taken to the chopping block for a Frankenstein-esque revitalization of their individual parts. Pulling from the tactic of video collage, I overlay videos and build connections from how they speak to each other, documenting my family experience with gender transition.
PER/SO/NA (2019)
Featured at:
Golden Hour | The Fort | Columbus, OH | August 2019
How hard are we willing to work to present ourselves authentically? Does the public perception of gender alter our idea of 'self'? What labour is involved with self expression? Implementing traditional 2D animation, stop motion, and guerilla film-making, PER/SO/NA uses the literal transition between forms to explore the rigorous process of gender transition. Juxtaposing fantastical animation against live-action performance, I present myself as a fluid work in progress, emphasizing the not-so-imaginary superpower of trans individuals: the ability to change (body, concepts, and conventions).
CODED CAMOUFLAGE
(2019)
Featured at:
Chromatic: LGBTQ+ Experience in Columbus | Wild Goose Creative | Columbus, OH | June 2019
#EnbyLife Journal | Spring 2019 | Published by Pink Advocate
My adversarial relationship between body and identity are teased through performance. I am defaced by gendered objects: cosmetics, crochet chains, and rollerblades (known as Fruit Booters in the machismo-filled world of action sports). Wrangling with the inherently feminine code of these interests, I pervert my form with these tools to emulate their impact on androgyny. In this series, objects work as artifacts documenting gender commodification. Photo avatars alongside Malibu Ken allow my past, present, and future identities to intermingle, and displays another form of transition alongside the ‘real time’ metamorphosis of video.
GENERICA AMERICA (2018)
Featured at:
No Evil Eye: Radical Micro Cinema | Wexner Center for the Arts | Columbus, OH | May 2019
Ohio Shorts | Wexner Center for the Arts | Columbus, OH | April 2019
Threads. | Hopkins Hall Gallery | Columbus, OH | Fall 2018
Since the inaugural Flaherty flick Nanook of the North, there have been ethical questions concerning characterization in documentary cinema. GENERICA AMERICA is an experimental micro-documentary tackling issues of gentrification, devoid of narrative, characterization, and anecdote. In the creation of my own film, I take a radically different approach to creating informative media about the subject of gentrification; my film removes the usual humanizing element; it presents information about gentrification in a sterile manner.