My artwork for the past decade has been an immersive exploration into the weaving of vintage, found images into an intricate mosaic of mixed media materials. By reinventing nostalgic images through adornment and context, my intentions are to alter an image’s narrative, reveal innuendoes, and provoke emotional response. My mosaics illustrate connectivity, intimacy, illness, humor, healing, and other human conditions.
I am currently focused on images from vintage health, safety, and medical guides and encyclopedias from the 1930’s – 1950’s, as well as comic book images from the early 1960’s. I select images that I find evocative, or humorous, or that I am moved by, and then adorn them using broken shards of glass from holiday ornaments, pieces of colored eggshell, ink, and paint. The torn paper borders of the images are then treated with an oxidized iron paint which will continue to rust over time. The finished mosaics are then placed into shadowboxes and treated as “modern artifacts”. These images are interpreted in ways not originally intended as they are seen out of their intended context and through a contemporary lens. A medical instruction photograph now illustrates an intimate moment between men; a knowing exchange between spies in a comic tells a new, erotic tale.
The materials I use, old broken glass and eggshell, are incorporated with specific intent. The fragile nature of both materials and the reassembly of them speak of taking care and consideration, repairing what is damaged, and presenting a manipulated but equally beautiful version of itself. I consider this adornment a reverence of sorts, coming from an acute dedication to the detailed processes of my work.
