New Works: paper and fabric collages
April 4 - June 27, 2023
UC Clermont Art Gallery - Batavia, OH

For centuries, people have told stories to explain the world around them. Whether to pass on warnings, to extoll truths, or to honor rituals, these stories are ways of building culture tied to a place. From childhood, we’re told stories and hear fables in order to learn about our own culture. Many of these tales include animals, both real and (possibly) imaginary, as main characters.

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Putting it all Together: Stories We Tell Ourselves features a series of fabric and paper collages that explore how we try to make sense of our strange world and our place within it. Using animals as a connection point between all the works, this exhibition creates stories and builds relationships between our reality and the strange, the unfamiliar, and the mythical.

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Using stuffed animal fabric as a main material, and creating illustrations that resemble bedtime storybook pages emphasizes the theme of our need to find security, understanding, and comfort in our surroundings. Inspired by my love for myths, legends, fables, and cryptozoology that was instilled in me by my father and older brother, these works play with perception and explore the space between what is and what if.

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Through these stories, I have gained an open mind to possibilities and a hearty sense of wonder and curiosity, which inspires me to travel and experience other cultures. Some of the stories had a definite lesson to be learned, others were based off mysteries and encounters with strange beings, and others were attempts to understand a situation without a concrete answer. No matter what the inspiration, storytelling is a part of humanity and has an amazing way of uniting people and potentially explaining our mysterious world.