“Here lie the raw, unpolished, and mostly disjointed pieces of my soul.” -Amanda Lovelace

The knitted stitch has become a vehicle with which to express my guttural instinct, deep thoughts, and ideas about what is important to me as a woman, mother and artist. The ideas about my own identity are embodied in the gestures of knitting, painting and shadow, considering the aesthetics of my personal experience. This project will reflect the fluctuation and shifting qualities of the craft of knitting, painting, human emotion, and materiality. In a body of work where I have knitted with wire, yarn, and casted those pieces in cement, these objects have become surfaces for paintings that when hung on the wall create shadows that become an additional layer to the paintings.

The layers of multimedia materials create a stage to suggest dualities, both visually and conceptually. In this raw and somewhat rough application of the materials, I express a pure and raw quality of myself through the act of painting and knitting. The idea of provisional is thus translated in the appearance of disrupted patterns of the knitted stitch and the layers of material exploration which evolve in the moment and becomes a metaphor of the self with expressive lines and fluctuations.

I explore my deep thoughts on life and all its love, loss, grief, healing, empowerment, and inspirations. By applying these thoughts and ideas in specific materials like wire, concrete and paint, the visual aesthetic expresses a deeper understanding of my identity and what I stand for as a woman and a mother. Where I feel weakness, I find strength. When I feel sorrow, I seek joy. When rage has taken hold, I liberate myself to escape through the transformation of materials. By understanding where my weakness resides, I use the idea of dualities to create a foundation in my practice to resolve frustrations into clarity, agency, and to use my voice to express the positive and the negative experiences and thoughts on life. The work presented entail the changes, the resistance, and growth , where I have been directed in a different way to make sense of what does not make sense.

“To know oneself truly is to love oneself.”. -Inga Muscio

I use the word feminism as a term to empower myself as a woman, enabling me to stand independently and find strength for myself and within society. Recognize my maternal instinct that I live by day to day, where I am a nurturer and the protector of my child, I find strength and confidence as an artist, where I am free to express myself fearlessly and at full capacity. I can scream as loud as I want in the gestures of knitting, and cry tenderly as tears drip slowly with paint. And laugh loudly when I rejoice in this gift.