Firmly grounded in America’s expansive colonial history, my work interrogates how Southern culture has been idealized as “quintessential America” and the bedrock of traditional American values. Using my familiarity and position within Southern culture, I have created a new visual literacy to demonstrate how America’s nostalgia for tradition has been manipulated in an effort to isolate and disenfranchise.  My drawings act as a visual archive of research that examines the consequences of American colonialism and addresses the sense of white fragility that continues to pervade Western culture.  In the midst of widespread anxiety over the collective American identity, there has been a revival of many of the country’s unresolved historical battles, including contentious race relations, sexism, nativism, and an ever-growing wage gap. I employ the Americana aesthetic of the old South to parallel historical and contemporary acts of resistance to racial, economic, and gender diversity.  Borrowing directly from the decorative arts, the meticulously hand-cut mylar and equally intricate drawing capitalizes on America’s propensity for nostalgia to lure the viewer into confronting injustices through the detached lens of that which has already happened.

Through a combination of appropriated and invented imagery, my work contextually constructs contemporary accounts of systemic marginalization, executed under the guise of leisure, embellishment and luxury.  The dense visual language invites investigation into the textured surfaces and leads the viewer to reflect on the social textures of contemporary culture while questioning their own complicity in current social constructs.  Sourcing from period- specific textiles, turn-of-the-century advertisements, campaign posters, and found family photographs, the collaged images create a singular narrative composition that document the cyclical and systemic nature of marginalization in America. The methodology with which the drawings are constructed echoes historical layers of rules, regulations and hierarchies that are stitched into dominant white American myths. The resulting drawings are indexical in nature, recording the parallels between topics of current debate and 18th century Western expansionism.

The disconnect between the delicate nature of the work and the unresolved cultural tensions that it reveals provides a visual record of the inconsistencies of American idealism.  My current project explores the South as the embodiment of America’s pastoral traditions and values that are at the center of the “Make America Great Again” movement, a movement which has both exploited and is at odds with a social ideal that simultaneously proclaims itself to be “post- racial” and “post- gender” while identifying with a “pull-yourself-up-by-the-boot-straps” mentality.  As one of the earliest colonized areas, the South is often portrayed as a region of racial and gender stability in the face of impending change.  I am currently working with research institutions in the South to further understand how the architectural structure of the Southern plantation helped to build the current social structure of America.

EDUCATION
University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign: Masters of Fine Arts (2013)
Florida State University:  Bachelor of Fine Arts (2009)

AWARDS, FELLOWSHIPS and RESIDENCIES

2019        Fellow and Resident, Ucross Foundation, Clearmont, WY

2017        Fellow and Resident, Hambidge Center, Rabun Gap, GA

2016        Fellow and Resident, Vermont Studio Center, Johnson, VT
                Fellow and Resident, Ucross, Foundation, Clearmont, WY
                Fellow and Resident, Hamidge Center, Rabun Gap, GA (scheduled)
2012        Brody Gallery, Living Arts of Tulsa, Tulsa, OK
2011        Creative and Performing Arts Fellowship Grant, University of Illinois Urbana- Champaign
2010        Brody Fellowship, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

SOLO AND TWO-PERSON EXHIBITIONS

2020        Converge, Joan Derryberry Art Gallery, Clarksville, TN (forthcoming)

2019        Everything that Rises, Thompson Gallery, Greenville, SC (forthcoming)

                Everything that Rises, Rebecca Bryan Art Gallery, Hilton Head, SC (forthcoming)

2017        Pins & Needles, Sella-Granata Art Gallery, Tuscaloosa, AL
                Campaign Julienne, Jonathan Ferrara Gallery, New Orleans, LA
2014        Constructs, VSU Fine Arts Gallery, Valdosta, GA (two-man show)
2013        Of Skin and Bristle, Krannert Art Museum, Champaign, IL
2012        Darned Delicates, New Genre Festival XIX, Living Arts of Tulsa, Tulsa, OK
                Laura Tanner, WIU Art Gallery, Macomb, IL
2011        One to Watch, Figure One Gallery, Champaign, IL

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS

2019        Art on Paper 2019: The 48th Exhibition, Weatherspoon Art Museum, Greensboro, NC

                Overlapping Tension, Susquehanna Art Museum, Harrisburg, PA (forthcoming)

2018        Art on Paper Fair, The Armory (Pier 36), Jonathan Ferrara Gallery, New York City, NY

                Guns: Loaded Conversations, San Jose Museum of Quilts and Textiles, San Jose, CA

                Draw!, Tempe Center for the Arts, Tempe, AZ

2017        Art on Paper Fair, The Armory (Pier 36), Jonathan Ferrara Gallery, New York City, NY

                Pulse! Miami, Booth N-201, Jonathan Ferrara Gallery, Miami, FL

                Faculty Biennial, UAMA, Tucson, AZ

2016        Paper Trails, Danny Saladino Gallery, Covington, LA
2015        Louisiana Contemporary, Ogden Museum of Southern Art, New Orleans, LA
                35th Bradley International Drawing and Print Exhibition, The Contemporary Art Center
                of Peoria, Peoria, IL
                Faculty Exhibition, Southeastern Louisiana University Contemporary Art Gallery,
                Hammond, LA
2014        Art on Paper 2014: The 43rd Exhibition, Weatherspoon Art Museum,
                Greensboro, NC
                In Site, Pierro Gallery, South Orange, NJ
                Faculty Exhibition, Southeastern Louisiana University Contemporary Art Gallery,
                Hammond, LA
2013        Worked, ATHICA Gallery, Athens, GA Peanut Gallery, Chicago, IL
                Post-Conceptual Glitter, Lawton Gallery, University of Wisconson, Green Bay,
                Green Bay, WI
2012        Art Basil, Link Gallery, University of Illinois, Champaign, IL
                YouEyeYouSee, CoProsperity Sphere, Chicago, IL
2011        No Dead Artists, Jonathan Ferrara Gallery, New Orleans, LA