2025, acrylic, paper-mache, cardboard, wood, silly-string and mixed media, 7ft x 3ft x 3ft.
Someone gifted me a small taxidermied gator head they picked up in a Florida gift shop years ago, and it’s been keeping me company in the studio ever since. It first made an appearance in my work in a series of still life paintings I created during Covid in 2020 and 2021. It was the central figure in a swampy scene, with figurines posed like they were scurrying away and hiding in trees. The sculptural version is kinetic- it moves around on wheels and opens its mouth, spraying silly string at viewers.
To me, the gator represents a quiet, constant threat, something lurking in the background that you almost get used to, until it creeps back into your peripheral vision.
While I was making this, “Alligator Alcatraz,” the inhumane immigration detention center, was in the news and on my mind, but I’m more interested in the animal as a prehistoric reptile that lurks in our shared subconscious, reminding us that the world is a dangerous place and you should never get too comfortable.
The gator is maneuvered and operated from behind with wheelbarrow handles. When you push the handles down, the mouth opens wide and sprays silly string.
I moved the gator outside in sections to spraypaint the interior mechanical parts black. This gave me the opportunity to photograph it from some unique angles, including from above as seen here.
The gator is pictured here at its exhibition debut at Ox-Bow House in Douglass, Michigan, in front of My Face.
2022, acrylic on canvas on panel, socks, steel, polyfil, LED lights, zipline cable, 7 ft x 6 ft x 2 ft.
The butterfly monster character first appeared in a zine called “How I Became a Butterfly,” several years earlier, a brief narrative outlining the ugly, painful, and humiliating process of self-transformation.
This butterfly was created for the 2022 ‘Haunted Trail’ at the Ox-Bow Artists’ Residency in Saugatuck, MI. Installed on a zipline in the woods, it reveals its hideous face by turning on lights in its antennae, and then hurls itself towards the viewer, ending its flight with a loud crash as it knocks into hanging cans filled with rocks.
acrylic on canvas on shaped panel, socks, steel, polyfil, LED lights (in antenna), zipline cable, 7 ft x 6 ft x 2 ft, 2022
Butterfly, 2022, Created at Ox-Bow School of the Arts, Saugatuck, MI
acrylic on canvas, spray foam, chicken wire, string, 7 ft x 10 ft, 2021
acrylic on canvas and mixed media, 2021
acrylic on panel and mixed media
(panoramic view) 2017, acrylic on paper with collage, cardboard, squeaky toys
This 36 ft x 8.5 ft acrylic painting is hung from the ceiling in a circle so that it completely surrounds the viewer. The floor is covered with heavy-duty cardboard, hiding over 50 squeaky toys that squeal as viewers move through the space.
acrylic on panel with tube socks and mixed media
Viewers are invited to squeeze the dot on each arm to activate recordings pulled from the inners of stuffed animals like Tickle-Me-Elmo.
acrylic on panel, faux fur, paper mache clay, wood, squeaky toys, peepholes and mixed media.
Viewers are invited to pull the lever from behind the sculpture, opening the mouth and letting out squeaky-toy squeals. They may also look through peepholes in the monster's eyes.
acrylic and collage on unstretched canvas
acrylic on paper
acrylic on paper
fabric, faux fur, wood, mixed media
Viewers are invited to pull the rope to make legs flail.
2011, fabric, foam, plastic, mixed media, fog horn
Viewers are invited to enter the mouth and pull the uvula, activating a foghorn in the gallery.
fabric, foam, plastic, mixed media
fabric, foam, plastic, mixed media
Viewers follow the toes through a hallway gallery into a dark room, where the rest of the foot is dramatically lit.
fabric, foam, plastic, air mattress, mixed media
pencil, pen and watercolor on paper
charcoal on paper
pencil, pen and marker on paper
pencil on paper, 11x8.5 in.
pencil on paper, 8.5x11 in.
colored pencil on paper