Abstract

This body of work engages with contemporary American home life and suburbia by exploring themes of isolation, estrangement, and the home by distorting quotidian motifs and reimagining Americana imagery. The work examines how the American landscape has been shaped by the intrusion of industrialization, neoliberalism, and the mythos of the American dream. At this nexus point of the dismantling of social connection, combined with the capitalist demand for hyper individualism and competition, tied with the alienation of human labor and the natural environment, one finds the contemporary American pathos. How do the effects of neoliberalism, suburbia, and hyper individualism relate to the collapse of identity and meaning in contemporary American home life? This project culminates in the creation of  a solo exhibition of mixed media and metal sculptures, hand embroidery pieces, and 2D works, using a variety of materials and methodologies to create stylizations and distortions of familiar forms. Steel objects act as a foundation for the work, physically representing industrialization and the extraction of materials, while fabric, in dialogue with embroidery work, embodies domesticity, familiarity, and a certain intimacy. This juxtaposition between materiality creates both a visual and physical tension in the work to invoke a feeling of unease and discomfort to parallel the social discontentment currently in America. The intention is to create a personable and accessible connection between the work and the viewer that can prompt larger conversations about roles in society, American life, and ultimately the collective future. These absurdist and uncanny sculptural portraits of the suburban home asks the viewer to embark on an unending search for insight and understanding of the alienation and homogeneity of suburbia and what that reveals about the current social zeitgeist.

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