Date of Submission

Spring 2024

Academic Program

Studio Arts

Project Advisor 1

Lothar Osterburg

Abstract/Artist's Statement

I am exploring the everchanging, miraculous soul that resides in all matter perpetually. We tend to see the way we present ourselves as an accurate representation of who we are as people, as beings. Our physical appearance is not unimportant. However, the beautiful intricacies of our inner body, our organs and veins, contain life-giving energy. Here, the soul flows.

My work explores the soul’s presence inside of our bodies, and its reflection onto the natural world, the animals, trees, rocks, and water that we live beside. The soul is not separate from ourselves - it needs our living body to harbor it. This gives a new significance to our organs, to the moving parts underneath our skin. Where does this energy go when our body shifts and changes through time? If the soul depends on a body of matter to reside in, then it will forever find another one to go to, a mass-unifying power between us and the natural world. I aim to give the viewer a new perspective on the power and beauty of what’s within us.

All of my pieces are hand printed from woodblocks of various sizes, which are the anchors of the artwork. Due to the large size of the prints, the process of printing became very physical. I used not only a baren and a spoon, but my own body as a press. I used my knees, my nails, my elbows, my feet and my legs to create the marks on the paper. In this process, I experienced a closeness and physicality I have never felt before in my practice.

I was inspired to explore the complexity of the inner body after dissecting a sheep heart for the first time, with no prior knowledge of what I would find once I cut it open. I was amazed by the shapes and pure beauty found within this vital organ, and it connected me to philosophers such as Aristotle and Galen, who also dissected organs in their search for the home of the soul.

I view my works as fragments of the living body. In each artwork there are parts that have clear and defined print registrations akin to organic matter. Just before the shapes can be defined, the form changes into something else again. Though we all seek to understand ourselves, our reality is everchanging - we will never once be what we were before.

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