My work reframes familiar histories to reveal that which has been hidden by erasure, translation, discrimination, and time. Fueled by my interest in overlooked narratives, my practice spans painting, drawing, and printmaking and examines how history is authored, shaped, and shared. While research-based and conceptually driven, my work draws on the centuries-old tradition of trompe l’oeil painting to challenge viewers’ perceptions and subvert their expectations, thus calling into question what they see and therefore know.
For example, my current project, American Paradise, reframes the history of the Hudson River School to give visibility to the many women affiliated with this iconic movement ostensibly founded in 1825 by Thomas Cole. Invoked critically, this project’s title is borrowed from a 1987 exhibition catalog published by the Met that perpetuates the mythology of the movement as being founded by–and comprised exclusively of–men. Through a series of trompe l’oeil paintings that make visible the never-finished act of historical recovery, drawings that function as revisions to historical documents, print editions that visualize the surreptitious ways women transcended the constraints of their clothes and society, and a series of imagined second, third, and fourth editions of the Met’s 1987 iconic catalog that insert works by these women into the canon by way of the frontispiece.
My work reframes familiar histories to reveal that which has been hidden by erasure, translation, discrimination, and time. Fueled by my interest in overlooked narratives, my practice spans painting, drawing, and printmaking and examines how history is authored, shaped, and shared. While research-based and conceptually driven, my work draws on the centuries-old tradition of trompe l’oeil painting to challenge viewers’ perceptions and subvert their expectations, thus calling into question what they see and therefore know.
For example, my current project, American Paradise, reframes the history of the Hudson River School to give visibility to the many women affiliated with this iconic movement ostensibly founded in 1825 by Thomas Cole. Invoked critically, this project’s title is borrowed from a 1987 exhibition catalog published by the Met that perpetuates the mythology of the movement as being founded by–and comprised exclusively of–men. Through a series of trompe l’oeil paintings that make visible the never-finished act of historical recovery, drawings that function as revisions to historical documents, print editions that visualize the surreptitious ways women transcended the constraints of their clothes and society, and a series of imagined second, third, and fourth editions of the Met’s 1987 iconic catalog that insert works by these women into the canon by way of the frontispiece.
