Artist Statement
Whether in performance or visual art, I bring new context to old stories. Through subverting the expectations of a viewer, a new space for questioning what’s assumed and what’s known opens up. Pushing the edge of what a viewer might tolerate shares an equal level of subversion with the act of surprising a viewer with the unexpected. Our daily lives are dangerously prone to unawareness and unquestioning, whether of social norms or of ourselves. It’s the role of the artist to remind viewers not simply to expect, but to seek the unexpected.
During the pandemic in New York City, boarded storefronts and dull sidewalks called out for an infusion of something lively, something unexpected. My recent work, The Rimbaud Project, is a multi-disciplinary endeavor that pulls from my background in body art performance, calligraphy, and dance theater, plus my perspective as a transgender woman, to reimagine the work of the brilliant queer poet, Arthur Rimbaud.
I’ve recast Rimbaud’s words in my calligraphy to adorn unexpected places around New York City. Merging the world of street art with 1870s poetry, I use stenciling, painted imagery, and lettering on paper to imbed sections of Rimbaud’s poetry into daily life—the back wall of a construction site, atop discarded piles of cardboard, the side of a porta-potty. The juxtaposition of rich and vivid language alongside ordinary, overlooked surroundings brings new life to both the poetry and the places that bear it.
