Growing up in the church my life revolved around the worship of God. The face of Jesus became the representation of God and was burned into my mind every Saturday. The goal was to walk with him in heaven. The bible was an object that was coveted and my name lay across its cover in gold. The things that seemed real were the things I could see and touch.
When my father left the ministry we moved to Kansas. Abruptly my life changed. God was gone. Never seen nor mentioned as a family again. This experience, with time and reflection, has had a large impact on my life.
Therefore, it was important for me to wrestle the idea of materiality versus spirituality. As a child material objects brought a sense of security, reality or meaning to life. They were things that I could literally hold and understand; faith was materialized. As I have grown older a strong dichotomy has become present as I seek understanding of non-material ideas, concepts and experiences. Thus, I removed the object, leaving a void that gives a sense of something that could be, for example, lying on a table. I coupled that with colors and flat horizons that surrounded me in the Kansas landscape. The results are a void, represented as an unrecognizable object, cut away between and within the plains.
Over the whole body of work each void has a unique stance that is a dominant focal point. The voids exist within their planes like small and large monuments, which like Brancusi’s sculptures, constantly reach towards the sky.