April 9, 2017: Egypt's Coptic Christian
Mourning
May 22, 2017: Ariana Granda Concert
Tea Lights
Artist Statement
Growing up I loved making things, doing arts and crafts, creating doodle patterns, putting together puzzles, and playing strategic games, especially in 3D. Only recently, have I been able to focus on these natural inclinations, and somehow meld them into inspiration for my undergraduate artwork.
I have a particular interest in creating patterns. I have applied patterns to ceramic pieces to add dimension to their surfaces. I have superimposed patterns on photographs to underscore a story or social commentary. I have created patterns that have historic or contemporary relevance. I have created patterns from ordinary objects and turned them into colorful, youthful patterns. The possibilities are endless.
Growing up with a parent who is an interior designer may have been the catalyst for turning some of my patterns into wallpaper. The mood of a space can be altered easily by the addition of wallpaper. Wallpaper is decorative, but it can tell a story, or evoke a particular feeling.
For my undergraduate Capstone project, I decided to address the issue of terrorism through my patterns. I did not want to highlight the violence, which would seem like a way to perpetuate the terrorist’s message. Instead, I wanted to tell a story through symbols about how people cope, come together, and manage to move forward despite unthinkable horror. I wanted the viewer to see beyond death and destruction, to view the community as a whole…for the patterns to represent the facets of a community that come together as a cohesive, integrated group…not fragmented as the terrorist’s intended.
I created four wallpaper patterns based on two terror incidents: the bombing of two Coptic Christian churches in Egypt on April 9, 2017, and the bombing on May 22, 2017 outside an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester England.
For the incident in Egypt, I constructed a pattern of arches composed of nuts and bolts. The nuts and bolts depict the bombing material, and the arches represent the church entrance. The aftermath of the bombing is depicted in a pattern of coffins arranged in a Coptic cross, with the coffins adorned in scroll-work depicted on traditional images of the Coptic cross.
For the Grande concert attack, I arranged images of the concert tickets in the shape of the stadium, and placed shattered tickets outside the stadium perimeter where the bombing occurred. The other pattern is large bumblebees comprised of tea lights. The bee is a symbol of the enduring, hard working history of Manchester citizens; the tea lights symbolize the candlelight vigil held in memory of the concert victims.
My presentation of the project was in two small gallery rooms with white walls and dark carpet. In one room, I hung the Egyptian wallpapers on adjoining walls with a small stand in front that held 44 nuts and bolts representing the 44 victims.
In the other room, I hung the Manchester wallpapers on opposite walls with a very large bumblebee composed of burning tea lights on the floor between the two walls. Both galleries had soft lighting.
The overall feeling of the spaces was spare, contemplative and solemn. I wanted to pay respect to the victims, and to depict a lingering sense of loss while still seeing a glimmer of beauty in the resilience of survivors.
