Liminal beings are mythological creatures that are able to exist in two states simultaneously. This ability to bring together elements that seem disparate and find a connection between them is a defining quality of human psychology. In my artwork, I address the way memories or daydreams create liminal possibilities in domestic spaces.
My work is affected by moments of reverie and fantasy as they take place inside a domestic architectural space. Some pieces could be likened to dream environments in that (unlike real environments) they are able to externalize an internal state, the way we often long to do in moments of grief or elation. In my artwork, the expression of a state of memory happens –literally and figuratively—through films and layers. My most recent work oscillates between video and sculptural installation.
Raoul Eshelman writes about performatism (or anti-postmodernism) as tending to adjust time and space until, “wish and wish-fulfillment coincide.” In my own work I am similarly interested in depicting wish-fulfillment as might occur in the imagination of a person who has a moment in which to daydream.
I often place my work within the context of dreams or daydreams in order to establish that the pieces deal more thoroughly with mood than with cultural context. A dream setting helps to free the work from the semiotic analyses that other frameworks would be more apt to provoke. In so doing, it is my hope that a viewer will first taste a flavor from the work before he/she proceeds to contemplate it.
I have recently become interested in Paul Bloom’s perspectives on the dual nature of human psychology. I also frequently return to Alain de Botton’s The Architecture of Happiness, which beautifully addresses the psychology of the spaces we inhabit. Haruki Murakami’s novels have also influenced me in the way that they successfully mix the dream world with reality. In addition to these writings, works by Doris Salcedo, Maya Deren, Bill Viola and Do Ho-Suh have greatly affected both my thinking and studio processes.