My father is from Newfoundland and my mother is from Japan. They are without-a-doubt middle class, have their high school diplomas, and if I could get them to vote, they would probably vote Republican. My mother, a former bartender, is a mutual funds wizard who thinks Sylvester Stallone is a comic genius. My dad, a retired Chief Master Sergeant, watches Animal Planet and weekly polishes his three motorcycles.
Me? I still can’t figure out if I am downwardly mobile or a bourgeois bohemian. I hide the fact that I have an advanced degree and wonder out loud what fine art has done for me. I can’t stand group politics, yet would be labeled a bleeding heart liberal. An old therapist thought I was gay because I spent an hour (actually 50 minutes) ranting about homophobia. And if another person labels me “exotic,” I’ll give them a karate chop.
My point? Obviously, I am a mixed bag when it comes to education, class, gender, and ethnicity. And consequently, I am a hybrid artist when it comes to subject matter, medium, and language.
Due to these apparent contradictions, I am in the ritualistic process of constructing an identity-trying to align my personal experience with outer social, political, and sexual realities. In my attempt to create urban folk art (รก la The Ramones), I use common materials and talk about everyday situations that make up a life. In general, my work deals with intimacy, power, feminism, and human behavior. I confront embarrassing moments, unpleasant feelings, and difficult situations, while maintaining a wry humor that tempers the discomfort of my subject matter. Perhaps this is related to my childhood obsession with the game Truth-or-Dare, and later, my worship of John Lennon’s Plastic Ono Band. The images come to me as reactionary flashes to what I have heard, seen, or experienced. I literally cough them up. Hence my work is a visual diary, brimming with sweet suffering and sap, that rests in the space between memory and imagination. Through the use of confessing characters and tattletale personas I guide the viewer down a multi-layered narrative path.
