Artist Statement: Reflection - The act of reflecting or the state of being reflected. Something, such as light, radiant heat, sound, or an image, that is reflected. Serious thinking or careful consideration. Transformation - The act or an instance of transforming. The state of being transformed. A mapping of one space onto another or onto itself. I am currently working on a series about dreams and visions, and my concept for this piano emerged from that. The design for this piano combines imagery and symbols of imagination, reinvention, vision, and reflection. Mirrors of different sizes are affixed in varying patterns around the piano. The mirrors become many things including the pupils of eyes, whole faces, and parts of peacock feather and butterfly wing patterning. Sculpted, textural elements and carefully laid glass add to the landscape of the piano. The entire design is a whirl of colorful abstracted faces, feathers, and other forms connected by fluid black lines. All of these images and shapes morph into and out of each other with pieces of the real world reflecting out of them and absorbing into them - a mix of the surreal and the mundane. You can get up really close and see yourself or catch fragments of the world behind and above you even as you sink into the world of the piano. People are constantly feeding off what we see, hear, and experience, and we reinvent ourselves in ways small and large in response. It is my hope that the piano will capture some of the fluidity, joy and strangeness of reflection and transformation: of seeing ourselves and our surroundings in another context.
"I am an actor and an artist. I have been making images and creating characters and the worlds they inhabit for as long as I can remember. As a child and young adult I drew faces incessantly and explored a variety of 2D media. From the moment I was introduced to Shakespeare at age 9 I was also in love with luxuriant language and dreams of the stage began. By the time I graduated from high school I had decided to focus on performance and that remained my primary passion for many years. In the last few years however, I have shifted back to primarily visual media - this time in three dimensions. In both forms, people have always been my focus. Why do we do the things we do? How do you express universal themes through singular experience? How do you elicit a sense of character, motion & emotion? What is our visual language, the language of the body, the differences in the stories told by our words, our bodies & our environment? How do you combine and layer all of these languages in the most effective manner? How do you find the stillness in the center of movement and maintain a sense of movement in stillness? For a long time I have considered the creation of a new character to be a drawing out of the person I could have been given the imaginary circumstances - not putting on someone else. It is the same with my artwork - I seek to create pieces in which everyone can see & feel a portion of themselves, of their potential - for good or for ill - within a fictitious setting. Always both the watcher and the watched. This will be the third piano I have created for Sing for Hope. The first one was created in 2013 and the second for the 2014 Superbowl. My work has most recently been displayed at the Arts Students League of New York and MANA Contemporary in NJ. Currently I am working on a new devised theater piece exploring domestic violence and feminism as well as continuing an ongoing project entitled Recycled Dreams. Check out my website www.DreamscapesInk.com for more information. "
