artist statement.

Caesura is the pause between words in a line of poetry. This pause, like white space on canvas, like silence in film, is where both the artist and audience absorb the impact of what has been expressed and prepare themselves for what is yet to come. It is the rest-stop on the highway of truth, a gift of respite and silence for the mind to gather its scattered thoughts and make sense of what it has seen. And from this moment of rest comes clarity. Something is made known, followed by a desire to know more, to see more.  And this is where I’ve found myself as an artist, in no man’s land between one word and another. And from this silence and empty space, I’ve built this project that is both continuing what has been said in my art and departing significantly from it in its need for more truth. 

The exhibit features narrative photography, film, poetry, paintings, and a live exhibit of calligraphy on skin. It showcases an autobiographical line of work on trauma & childhood, culture & tradition, and daring resistance. In this project, the female body is the canvas that carries the story. 

Together, the art featured in “caesura” is a collection of confessional work that captures the world of a woman who has been raised in an environment of shame, secrecy, lovelessness, and loneliness. She comes from a world that has severed her in two, with one half of her caught in an endless, exhausting war against the other. She speaks, but is hesitant in her speech. She runs, but is just as much bound to her past as she was when she couldn’t. In essence, this project not only attempts to communicate the trauma that took place within one woman’s life, but, more importantly, it seeks to understand the lingering, unyielding, unconscious effect it has on her today.