What Is My Work About?
Artist Statement
Images 1-16 / Collage and Confetti Confidential
I belong to a collage group called Confetti Confidential, the group has been meeting once a week
for the past two years. Consisting of 5 women who work as graphic designers (Lucy Cook, Ania
Diakoff, Laura Bernstein, Kate Johnston, and me), the collage group was established to fulfill a
lack of community and space for making. We chose collage specifically because it was an
activity we could all easily participate in; individually we have cultivated our own ways of
making while sharing the space and work time. The sessions often start off with a potluck dinner
transitioning into collage making and ends with a group critique of all work produced. Over the
last year we have hosted and participated in open collage sessions inviting the public to join us in
making collage. These meetings have been invaluable to me and my work.
I started making the collages as a part of the group but have since taken it on as my own practice.
I generate all the material that is used to create the collages. The generated material starts on the
computer where I design and create graphics (pixelated and bitmapped) in the form of patterns
and illustrations in black and white, these designs then get processed through the Riso copying
machine where the color is added – the printer, due to its age, adds softness and grains of texture
to the vector graphics. The printer only prints one color per layer (like silk-screening); this
allows for dense layers of color and experimentation during the printing process. Then I add
hand drawn shapes and forms to offset the computer graphics. I like playing between the
technologies and forcing a contrast between drawing and the hyper-pixelated patterns and
graphics from the computer. When I have finished working on the collage material I will then
tear it all up into shapes to create patterns and narratives using the figure. All the shapes are torn
by my hand – I don’t often utilize any tools or cutting devices. The tearing allows for
awkward forms to be made and handicaps my control in creating the final image.
The collages are separated into two themes – patterns and figurative narrative. I like to think of
the pattern-based work as an esoteric and insular typology, a formal experimentation of shapes
acting to represent a familiar yet foreign way of communicating/seeing. The same shapes often
repeat throughout all the collages I have made; a part of my process is saving all scraps that are
left behind from one collage and adding them to the next so that there is a constant dialog
between the work. Recently I have been experimenting with applying drawings and found
materials to create an added layer of space and dimension. The figurative works are a result of
trying to express a narrative through my methodology. I am inspired by medieval woodcuts that
depict occult themes such as the devil, witches, sin, and suffering. I often try to replicate the
same sense of emotional unease I see in the woodcuts. My collages are not as dense with
symbolism but aspire to communicate a range of states of being such as loss, pain, hope, ecstasy
and solitude.
Images 17-20 / Divided Daughters
Divided Daughters is a collaboration between my sister Swan Moon and me. The origin of the
projects is our KCHUNG radio show; it has evolved into making ceramics (my sister throws the
shape and I paint them) and into a two episode television show with Dawn Garcia for KCHUNG
TV at the Hammer Museum. For me, the ceramics are an extension of the collages. I paint/glaze
the ceramic shapes in the same way I create the drawing elements when making the collage
material. KCHUNG TV was an interesting opportunity to create something new. Everyone who
is a part of the radio station was invited to create and produce a show. For the two time slots we
were given, Swan and I decided to produce Divided Daughters Request Video Live and JPEG
CITY with Dawn Garcia directing.
Divided Daughters Request Video Live was inspired by Orange County’s public television
KDOC show Request Video with Gia DeSantis. My sister, Dawn, and I watched this show while
it aired during the mid-90s. We based our KCHUNG TV episode on the final episode of Request
Video on KDOC which we found on YouTube. The final episode of Request Video represented
to us the beginning of the end of original public television content.
Our show starts at this end, simulating and reliving public television’s demise but on web TV in
a new context. The episode concludes with everyone dismantling the set in an apocalyptic green
screen explosion of fire with sound image glitches similar to those one would experience while watching
TV on the internet. Our second TV show, JPEG CITY, is about culture’s obsession with images through social
networking platforms Tumblr, Facebook, and Instagram. We wanted to create an Alice in
Wonderland-like scenario wherein Swan would disappear into a world of jpegs. In the beginning
she swallows a large amount of jump drives, hard drives, laptops and iPhones to wake up in
JPEG CITY where she is confronted by all of her desires and nightmares through images. She
disappears into this world while in the background I am urging to come back into reality; during
this part of the show, I read excerpts from Towards a Philosophy of Photography by Vilem
Flusser. In the end she comes upon an oracle who tells her she needs to put down her phone and
enter back into the real world. JPEG CITY was our comic way of trying to deal with our present
time of images superseding reality, the flattening of history and loneliness.
Education
2011 MFA California Institute for the Arts, Valencia, CA
2001 BFA Otis College of Art and Design, Los Angeles, CA
2014
Group Shows
Saying Yes to Everything, Honor Fraser, Los Angeles, CA
KCHUNG TV, Made in L.A, Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, CA
Confetti Confidential, Human Resources, Los Angeles, CA
Drunk at Midnight, Ouli, Los Angeles, CA
2013
Group Shows
Reproduction, What Pipeline, Detroit Michigan
2012
Apocollage, Apt Space , Los Angeles, CA
2011
CalArts End of Year Graphic Design Show, Valencia, CA
2010
CalArts End of Year Graphic Design Show, Valencia, CA
2001
Snow (11 Los Angeles Artists on something they know nothing about… So what’s new?), Practice Space Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
BFA Otis Thesis Show, Otis College of Art and Design, Los Angeles, CA
Curatorial Projects
2013
Cedar Bylard, Vagrant Forms
Residency
2014
Confetti Confidential, WCCW at Echo Chamber
Published
IDEA Magazine, 2014
Pants Magazine, 2013
LA I’m Yours, 2013