Series
Gray Space
2016
Sophomore year my mom asked if she could turn my bedroom into a home studio. She'd never had a place of her own in the house before, so I told her she could. She moved in her paints and brushes, put her clothes for exercising on my bed, and reconfigured the room to suit her needs. At the beginning of this year my sister asked if she could take my room for her own to live in with her fiancé, both currently living in the smaller playroom down the hall. She wanted to paint over the tie dye on my walls to her preferred gray, cover up the lyrics I wrote next to my bed with her calendar, and move my king size bed into her 9" x 9" room. Now when I go home, my mom's easel takes up the floorspace at the end of my bed, my sister's fiancé's clothes are in my dresser, the girl from down the block that I was friends with has her bed on top of mine, and I can't reach the windows. To find my own space when I visit home, I go on walks alone in my neighborhood.
Overgrown
2014
"Overgrown" is a series of self portraits that depict the feeling getting older and becoming too large to fit into your hometown. The first trip back to your hometown after moving out and being on your own is said to be the hardest. I felt too large to fit into my old bedroom that I spent my entire childhood in. The walls felt rescricting. The activities that I used to fill up my days with had suddenly become so insignificant to me. While I was dealing with feeling out of place, the friends and family that continued to live in Munster after I left could not comprehend this enormous shift. Everything was as it had always been for them. I was what had changed.
Selected Works
2013-2016
