Through the annual University Student Exhibition, Atlantic Center for the Arts honors the outstanding work being produced by state university art students, and recognizes their dedication to the pursuit of excellence. Department chairs are asked to nominate up to three full-time, degree-seeking students, in any medium or style. The quality of work submitted in years past indicates that the departments provide the intellectual and creative direction necessary for students to push their limits; resulting in work that is unique in its singleness of vision.
My work focuses on place-making and interactive experiences. I am fascinated by the anatomy of real and invented creatures, locations, and happenings, specifically their structure, dynamics, and locomotion. I like to concentrate on forms we observe or imagine and how their function can be understood from underlying compositions. Through this, my interests have developed into referencing existent and non-existent worlds through sensory observations. One way I allude to something so arbitrary is by referencing movement, or even a memory of something that may have once moved. This can be revealed in participation with the piece, or the processes that shape it. I feel “stationary momentum” can be as engaging as a sculpture capable of genuine motion like rotating lights in the piece I made titled Portal.
Currently I am creating more interactive pieces of art. Through this I am ideally creating a more immersive experience with the art, as well as more convincing fantastical situations like in the Soft Storm installation I made where the viewer had to take off their shoes and socks and literally immerse their feet in 6 inches of water to participate with the sounds of thunder.
My studio practice is process based because my process is in most cases more valuable than the final product. My work is inspired by material manipulations and happy accidents. I like to work across many mediums and try to do something I have never done in each attempt. Whether in the process I learn to use a new tool, or master a technique, or even learn something about myself, these things add up and influence the subsequent directions I choose to go in. Since I try to use as many mediums as I can, there are times I will change direction in what I am attempting to convey but end up using my original planned technique on a different object and find it successful. Often in the midst of altering or combining materials, I discover some aspect that is even more interesting than what I originally set out to do.
ACA’s annual University Student Exhibition honors the outstanding work being produced by Florida’s state university art students. The selection process for this exhibition begins from within Florida’s nine major state university art departments. Each art department is asked to nominate up to three full-time, undergraduate, degree-seeking students, working in any medium or style. By identifying and promoting these emerging artists, ACA hopes to focus statewide attention on the high level of creative and experimental work being produced at the college level.