After the Survey Series was completed a volunteer commissioned the Fractured Hive portraits in the style of their portrait. Each piece has papers selected specifically for that individual’s personality, beliefs, or character. While each is unique, there are unifying elements throughout the series. There were new challenges with maintaining a stylistic cohesion while allowing each individual personality to shine.

The title comes from the fact that some of these people no longer speak to me; our family, our home was fractured.

Each portrait has a combination of paper, foam, stickers, vellum, and paint. Due to the reflective nature of some of the papers and stickers, along with the relief qualities, the portraits change as you move around the room.

Details of Jeff and Baron

Artifacts are tangible proof that something existed. This piece is the artifact from months of video work, introspection, exploration, and daily makeup as a ritual. In my research and performative work, I examined the concept of the mask of self, the characters that we play as we interact with one another.  Each day, I put on a different mask of makeup, a facet of myself to present to those with which I interacted. And each day, at the end, I took the mask off. It does not mean that one part is more true or less truly me, it was just the outward presentation of that part of me.

Some days the makeup was professional for work, other days I played with wild colors and costume-worthy applications.

In some of my performative video work, I painted a portrait of myself on my face with makeup. I used paint brushes with everyday and costume makeup to approximate a fauve self-portrait painted on my face rather than a panel. I then photographed my painted face on my face, and subsequently painted the photograph onto a panel.  When you are seated on the sofa, the Meta Portrait is at eye level with you, returning the gaze. There are two more meta portraits in progress. 

This duo came about from severe depression and anxiety. I was struggling to get out of bed, let alone make art. My headspace was very dark, and I almost gave up on everything. My advisors and cohort convinced me to just do one thing each day. Some days I glued paper together, some days I cut it apart, and some I painted dots all over. I began to assemble the pieces, seeing what the back of my brain was creating all along.

With Skelly Boi the center of my pain is in my head. I am just bones, piloting a meat suit, trying to cope with hormones and chemical imbalances. The written element is my list of definitions for my practice, to help articulate my work.

In There Are Worse Things… we see the core of my physical pain, my pelvis, from my worsening endometriosis. This piece was completed after my partner abruptly left me, lending to the much darker tone. The written element can be read by clicking the button below. I poured my grief into these, making myself do one thing each day.

I plan to continue working in this method while I am fighting my depression. While not necessarily portraits in the traditional sense, they are depictions of my internal struggles and self-doubt. They are reliquaries of grief, pain, and anger. This way I can say I achieved at least one thing each day, and that is better than not breathing.  

Some projects get pushed to the back burner when the muse takes you in a different direction. This is the beginning of a series of modern interpretations of historic depictions of witches, women of power. This panel is my take on Franz von Stuck’s Tilla Durieux als Circe (c. 1913), one of my favorite paintings in the Alte Nationalgalerie (The Old National Gallery) in Berlin. I plan on returning to this project in the fall.