Found objects, childhood memorabilia, wood, yarn, 2022
Graduate
Karen is an amalgamation of childhood toys, religious paraphernalia, found objects, couch cushion fabric, a wooden understructure, and bits of the Midwest (and more specifically, the Chicago suburbs). The dissonance between home in its actuality and the idealism (and ignorance) of homogeneous, small towns is the subject of this large-scale piece. Taking the form of an anthropomorphic couch, Karen critiques all (both people, places, and things) wrong and uncomfortable with the suburbs; an undertone of religion at all times, misogyny and racism, blending in, anonymity, a playing of cards, power struggle, naivety. Taking together objects procured during my parents’ divorce and ripping apart childhood toys to make this large-scale, humanoid structure, Karen works to legitimize the feeling of being uncomfortable in a place that once felt like home. This structure explores the beginning of a fascination with a suburban imagination and dissecting life in the small-town Midwest.
