about

CV

Instagram: @ratsarenotgross

Statement & Bio:

I want to understand what it means to be human: why we behave the way we do and how we construct ideas of place, identity, and belonging in relation to one another and the living world. I am both a conceptual artist and a scientist, though for me these are not separate disciplines but intertwined ways of learning and understanding.

I was born in Hawaii, grew up in New Mexico, and spent the summers of my youth in Vermont. My experiences with these diverse landscapes and cultures taught me to appreciate both diversity and connectedness, and how ecology, history, and memory shape how we see ourselves in relation to other beings.

I think about the intricate relationships between humans, plants, more-than-human animals, and landscapes and use sculpture, printmaking, and photography to explore these complex relationships. I wonder how our experience of the natural world is shaped by our controlled, human-centered environments and how estrangement from it impairs our ability to empathize with our earthly kin. My work explores the boundaries we construct between human and more-than-human life, the familiar and the foreign, the worthy and unworthy, and how those distinctions have become embedded in our broader societal hierarchies and concepts of "the other.”

My practice is an act of attention and tenderness. My work is a meditation on coexistence and interdependence with our earthly kin, and the emotional and ethical consequences of disconnection. I want us all to think more deeply about our relationship to the living world and to imagine a future grounded in reciprocity, tenderness, and shared belonging.

I hold a BFA in Studio Art and a PhD in Anthropology, and my work has been exhibited in galleries across the United States.