Multimedia Artist
PEOPLE PAPER
Artist Statement
Exploring text on the body and the experience of being "read" or "judged" by people became a personal fascination at a young age. I would cover my denim jeans with my thoughts in blue and red ink and write lines of poems on my skin.
Growing up with various medical conditions, I struggled with how society perceived my (dis) abilities and began documenting my experiences through poetry. It brought me solace during a time when the outside world projected many false parameters between me and what I could achieve. "You can't judge a book by its cover" became a mantra while experiencing the prejudices and discrimination I faced as a woman and person with disabilities. Yet, at the same time, those adversities catalyzed my life's work as an artist and community development professional.
PHOTORAPHY
The inception of my series, People Paper, began with my introduction to the art of photography in my first year of art school in 1997. Like a painter's brush, my camera is a tool I use to explore and document the relationship between language, perception, and environment. I incorporate handwritten text in my work to infuse myself into the portrait. By placing the subjects in diverse settings, I combine elements that reflect my experiences captured in the poems.
Over the last 20 years, I experimented with various materials to write on the skin of my subjects, and I found that eyeliner pencil was the best medium for the series. The thick texture moves quickly across various skin types, creating an ideal method of transferring text on the body.
I began the series using a Mamiya C Series – Twin-Lens Medium Format Camera and a single lens 35 mm camera. In 2007 I started using a digital camera but continued to lean towards minimalism in post-production with very few alterations in Photoshop.
PERFORMANCE
During the early years of the People Paper series, I enlisted the help of fellow artists to write my poems across my skin and entered public spaces. As onlookers tried to read the text with only fragments available for consumption, many asked for access to the complete poems.
The performance was an experiment in observing the curiosity and desire expressed by strangers to read the entire text, a commentary on the complexity of what individuals choose to reveal to the world.
The series has evolved, including spoken word poetry and video and live adaptations. These performances are an essential component of the series that helps me build trust and empathy through sharing some of my most vulnerable thoughts with those who choose to be in my series.