In my work I reinvent landscapes that communicate extremes of the macro and micro worlds that serve as arenas for a human story. Strength and fragility are prevalent themes as are the explorations of interactions and disconnections. This creates an environment by which the viewer can engage and consider these conversations as they navigate through or around the sculptures and installations. In my process of construction and deconstruction, adding and subtracting, I work towards finding an emotional and intellectual core of these invented spaces.
Materials such as barbed wire; tangled fishing line attached to fishing hooks; broken mirrors covered in dried salt water; and cement, postcard sized, landscape, sculptures on paper shape my solo show titled “Mi Tormenta” (My Storm). I use the elements in my installations to reflect both chaos and order and the tension that ensues from this intercourse. This metaphor also extends to an emotional experience: the uncertainty that comes with unbridled events, such as the connection or disunity between things or people — creating potentially threatening circumstances out of one’s control.
The concept for this exhibition was conceived while working at the Fountainhead artist residency in Miami the Spring of 2014. Next door to the Fountainhead studios in Little Haiti lies the remains of a drug den razed to the ground by the FBI in November 2013. As I searched through the rubble, the idea began to develop. I collected the scattered, empty crack bags, barbed wire, seeds from the trees and the rubble itself as a starting point. Reflecting on the chaos of drug addicts, their desperation and emotional range, the atmosphere of this environment, and the conflict of the illegality of these interactions, resulted in the concept of a storm. A reflection on the many manifestations of a tempest, whether it be illicit drug deals, the unruly storms for which Florida is notorious, or even a personal emotional turmoil of perhaps love or death.
