OUTAGE is an exhibition that begins to explore aspects of my spinal cord injury that left me paralyzed in May 2022. Just a few months into my 30s—a milestone I viewed as an opportunity for renewed self-discovery and to relinquish the many “second guessings” of my 20s—I was now faced with a challenge that I never would have foreseen.
Through a variety of colors, materials, and forms, I invite you to see the beauty that can emerge from adversity and the strength that can be found within vulnerability.
Lost My Footing
Lost My Footing captures a figure gracefully spinning in space as they’ve been struck by an ammo round (represented by rhinestones). With my spinal cord injury came the loss of my ability to move and dance in a traditional way. This “last dance” is a reminder that while sometimes you may lose your footing, you could find it again one day.
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Hanging Sculpture
Fiberglass Screen Mesh
Not for sale.
Concrete Lily
[SOLD]
Concrete Lily expands on the poem “The Rose The Grew from Concrete” by Tupac Shakur and serves as a starting point for reflection on the night of my injury. Despite hardships, challenges, and the odds stacked against it, the lily still finds a way to grow and thrive.
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22 x 30 x 8 in
Mixed Media Painting
Clay, Acrylic, and Sediment on Wood Panel
Outage
$450*
Sometimes when lightning strikes, it causes an outage to the power grid. While it leaves some unaffected, the rest will have to stand the storm and wait for the lights to come back on.
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36 x 48 in
Painting
Acrylic on Canvas
Land of Hypertonia
[SOLD]
With my SCI came hypertonia, a condition in which there is too much muscle tone so that arms or legs are stiff and difficult to move. This is the Land of Hypertonia—an expansive landscape that’s been hit by quite a terrain-altering event and which serves as a visual representation of how my body can feel beneath the surface.
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24 x 30 in
Mixed Media Painting
Acrylic and Sediment on Canvas
CTLSC
With a new spinal cord injury comes new vocabulary and knowledge about how your body communicates movement and protects such a delicate area. CTLSC* is a study of the different regions of the spinal cord and attempts to show how an injury can have varying side effects through flower blooms. While there are areas of my body that work normally, some connections are potentially decaying, and new ones may be sprouting.
*C(Cervical), T(Thoracic), L(Lumbar), S(Sacrum), C(Coccyx)
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Sculpture
Clay
Pew (x7)
Pew (x7) is a piece that represents the vehicle I was in when I was injured. It maps out the pattern of bullet holes that ran from the front to the back of my car. Here the flashing lights double as a medium for mimicking gunfire and serve as a combatant to the darkness being brought in by such a traumatic moment. The name Pew comes from the sci-fi sound effect that’s commonly used for laser guns/projectiles.
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24 x 30 x 4 in
Silver Leaf + Acrylic on Wood Panel
Not for sale.