Artist’s statement:

This piece began as a conceptual exploration of remembrance, repetition, obsession, healing, destruction, intrapersonal conflict, athleticism, the body, endurance, and mental health. Exercise, for me, has always worked simultaneously with art as a means of coping. Since beginning the piece almost two years ago, added layers of meaning include trauma, sexuality, internal conflict, shame, body image, interpersonal perception, depression, and rape. The active body is the site of catharsis but also the subject of scrutiny and harassment. Beginning as a process of mourning, I was honouring my body’s ability to carry me to the cemetery where my ancestral “roots“ lay. As my body changed, sexuality became more available along with feelings of shame. Shortly after, I would come to terms with a past of sexual assault. The layered composition of a runner’s footprints and polka dots highlight the aesthetic of repetition and obsession, creating a field that consumes the viewer. The slow and painstaking act of embroidering the work with the foliage from the cemetery is both an act of healing and destruction, like the act of sewing itself. I am forced to confront my past, re-exposing myself to these histories at the same time I am trying to move forward and let them go. Only after discovering the performance piece Someone Else by Abel Azcona did I have the courage to come forward about the entirety of the meaning of this work.

127 x 153 cm
Multimedia
2014-2015

---