Mixed Media 

We Wanted Monsters

Imagine uncovering a massive tooth or bone in the ground with no living animal to explain it. What stories would you invent to explain your discovery? For much of human life, fossils invited speculation, storytelling, and sometimes fear. Prehistoric animals continue to capture our imagination. They appear in museums, films, and private collections, inspiring curiosity as well as debate over who has the right to study, display, or own the remains of ancient life. But why? Why do we sometimes seem to know more about the extinct than the living? What is it about these animals that sparks debate and fuels a desire to collect and classify?

In the series, We Wanted Monsters, my mixed media paintings explore how these stories about the past are constructed. I examine how humans invent natural history as much as we study it. I’m interested in the space where science and pop culture overlap. In this group of work, prehistoric animals become symbolic bodies, sites where curiosity turns into control, where knowledge slips into spectacle, and where the natural world is reduced to something collectible and owned. The work may present as an easy read, but as you look closer, layers are revealed, bringing forth questions about these animals. Questions like, who has the right to claim fossils, how does science compete with popular belief and nostalgia, are fossils cultural treasures or a commodity?

Working through layering, collage, drawing, printmaking, and textured surfaces, fragments are built up, disrupted, and reassembled. The process mirrors how meaning itself is formed: unstable, incomplete, and always shifting, much like our understanding of the past. Each piece encourages its own unique blend of materials, based on its meaning and the moment.

Animals Among Us: Reflections on Myth and Meaning

Human perception of animal life is shaped by a web of cultural narratives, personal biases, and scientific interpretations. My mixed- media paintings investigate how animals are seen through the human lens, drawing from diverse sources to explore the multiple and often contradictory identities we impose upon them. These conflicting perceptions influence our understanding in ways that rarely align with an animals’ actual behavior or ecological role.

My fascination with animals began in childhood, rooted in a deep affection and a desire to connect. This interest has only intensified as I watch my young son develop his own wonder for the natural world reflecting the broader human fascination with the animal kingdom. We romanticize the wild, imbuing animals with mystical and symbolic qualities, even as we exploit, misunderstand, or inadvertently harm them in our attempts to help.

Through analyzing scientific research, myths, fables, and popular media representations, I gather collective knowledge about animals and the stories we attach to them. I become a kind of pseudo-expert, absorbing not only the biology of each creature but also the cultural narratives that shape their identities. I translate this intricate web of associations into my art by “building” the animals’ identities, starting with a foundation of collaged text and imagery, then layering painting and drawing.  This process constructs multi-dimensional portrayals that reflect our tangled, often contradictory relationship with the animal world.