I use print media, embroidery, and painting to explore various concepts that stem from considerations of pattern and repetition. In my current work, I deconstruct and repeat floral imagery to discuss ornament, impermanence, and the comfort (and discomfort) found in repetition. I manipulate found floral images using methods of scanning, stenciling, and duplicating to create tangled gardens, exploding Rorschach-like abstractions, and repeated lacey silhouettes of botanical forms.

This work combines imagery from 17th-century Dutch still-life paintings with aesthetic and conceptual concerns of the Pattern and Decoration movement, which emerged in the mid-1970s and championed decorative and craft-based aesthetics as equal to figuration, minimalism, and conceptualism in art. The Dutch flower paintings that inform my work depict lavish bouquets as objects symbolic of prosperity and abundance. Flowers undoubtedly serve as quintessential expressions of beauty, and I use them in my work to remind us of the things we value.

My work celebrates patterns’ affinity for consistency and predictability while acknowledging that changes and variability can also emerge through repetition. Visual tensions and harmonies develop as I combine and reconcile multiple patterns with each other. By masking areas, I also consider how our relationship with what is absent is nearly as strong as our relationship with what is present.

I began incorporating floral imagery in my work after spending the height of the 2020 Covid-19 pandemic tending an overabundant garden in my backyard. The repetition of the growing season as flowers budded, bloomed, wilted, and sprouted up again was therapeutic to observe. Inspired by that experience, I use patterning and flowers to signify the domestic, beauty, and life cycles. The complex patterns I create incite curiosity, introspection, and meditation.