Burning In Heaven

Solo exhibition in Chicago, Oct 22 - Nov 21, 2021

“ Your joy is your sorrow unmasked. And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears. And how else can it be? The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain. Is not the cup that holds your wine the very cup that was burned in the potter’s oven? “

~ from Kahlil Gibran’s The Prophet

Burning In Heaven addresses frustrations with communication and broken relationships, the impulses and temporality of passion, and the search for safe spaces and sanity amidst chaos.

I am fatigued of the necessary resilience of Woman and Femme. It is required because of the disrespect and violence towards her being and her body. Witches and Saints alike are burned and beheaded by small angry men. However, simply resenting the need for constant self-defense is not enough. Pepper spray, pocket knives, and witnesses are not enough.

So I find comfort and healing by turning trauma and heartbreak into intimate vignettes and clever jokes. I carve a ceramic comic strip about being groped by a stranger in the midst of a pandemic where I can’t see my friends or hug my family. I make relentlessly tender portraits of unrequited crushes and ghosting FWB’s.

Burning in Heaven delights in the power of destruction, calculated responses to strong emotions, and acceptance of mistakes. Like magic, I rearrange harsh words into poetry, I transform mud into stone, and I forgive my own sadness into many glowing stars. I will not cut off my ear, and I would sooner paint my anger than resort to arson. I do confess to smashing dishware in the alley, and ripping up pictures and paintings of ex-friends and ex-lovers.

My artwork also utilizes humor to deal with chauvinism, whether it be through a delightfully yonic chess set, or making the objectively powerful Queen the tallest piece in the game. Text messages dripping with toxic masculinity are painstakingly copied, decorated with eggshells, shards of glass, and my dusty footprints.

Burning in Heaven sends prayers for protection, and asks you to let me know when you get home safe. This work acknowledges the trappings of mainstream and binary expectations of gender, monogamy and “correctness”, but still speaks its own truth. We recognize strength in vulnerability, and welcome warmth and softness. An invitation to silliness, familiar teasing, and a loving embrace, when you’re ready - and if you want to.