Reliquary #3 (16 Cherry Blossom Ln.)

For a time, I was fascinated with the “ghosts” that lurk inside a home— emotions and memories that may linger long after the residents are gone. In the “Passthrough” works, I thought a lot about the trauma that may come from the experience of war, either as a combatant or a civilian. My previous bodies of work had typically explored the intersection of domesticity and destruction, albeit with a surreal twist, like a half-remembered dream. The “Pass-through” works layered the desolation of post-war landscapes atop mundane American settings to arrive at an unsettling liminal state. Built as they are inside of walls, the works literally bring war into the home—with the wall serving as a conduit for the experiences and traumas of those touched by war. The “Reliquary” pieces are the first I made in this exploration, embedding tiny figures of injured/deceased soldiers in walls behind a jeweler’s loupe, resulting in a distorted, ghostly image.