ARTIST STATEMENT
Crossing the boundaries of time, stories emulsify cultural preservation, social connection, and moral education. As a child, I had many questions about the mysteries of life. My Irish immigrant and painting contractor father often addressed them with engaging biblical stories that sparked my imagination and, inevitably, more questions. The complex visual language of illustrated images and their potential to articulate an intricate concept or story has fascinated me since early childhood. I was heavily influenced by Sunday comics and animated cartoons and bewildered by the authoritative coloring pages I was assigned in Christian Sunday school. The familiar, domestic materials I employ in my work, like wood (home construction materials and tools), book pages, and acrylic house paint, all inform the direction and comprehension of the work. By recontextualizing forms culled from the space of memory and fostering connections between images, text, and materials, the work investigates the mashup of narratives that influenced my formative understanding of religion, heritage, and the mysteries of life.