What is my work about?
Often traumatic and healing, feminist and exploitative, playful and very serious, my work consciously conceals the borders between art and life, fiction and reality and between public and private. Using performance, video and photography I place myself in extremely uncomfortable and vulnerable situations to explore the tension between trauma and humor, truth and fiction, and between audience responsibility and participation.
Artist Statement
Everything that I embarked on is a performance that blurs the borders between art and life and fiction and reality. Performance art has become an intrinsic part of my life. It is no longer something that I do, it is who I am. I worked as an undercover shopper at a local department store to apprehend shoplifters. I briefly interned at the Coroner’s Department so that I could view my grandmother’s files and see the crypt she was kept in. I religiously watched reality television and auditioned for shows. I channelled Tupac’s Spirit and became possessed by him. I had myself excused from jury duty by sobbing and reciting a horrific tale during voir dire. I’ve created Thug Life Fitness which is based on Tupac’s Prison Workout and survivor philosophies. I am currently training to compete in my first bikini competition. The above situations are just a few examples of how art, specifically performance art plays a key role in my everyday life.
Images 1-2
In “Tupac’s Prison Workout/ThugLifeFitness”, I’m currently transforming my body, mind, and soul with the guidance of my mentor Tupac Shakur. Tupac embodies the true survivor. Even in his “death”, he has remained immortal. I’ve incorporated his documented prison workouts, his philosophies, and popular street “Thug Workoutz” that can be found on youtube into my daily routine. With the recent fitness craze that is dominating social media sites, I’ve created an instagram account to document my transformation because, after all, #strongisthenewskinny.
Images 3-7
“She Will”, is a performance in the style of a TED Talk in which I use moments in popular culture and personal narratives to discuss how to become the next great artist and what the next great work of art will consist of.
1. Nudity – I ask an audience member to undress me after my ex lover refuses to.
2. Deep- The next work of art needs to have meaning, I tell a very personal story.
3. Pain- I ask the audience for a knife, one member says he has one but will not let me use it in the name of art. I brake a wine glass and begin to carve the popular slang word YOLO (You Only Live Once) into my stomach. Some audience members beg me to stop while one member shouts “don’t forget the hashtag!”
4. Edible- The next great work of art will be edible. I become edible and the audience is invited to taste and eat me.
5. Sextape- The next great work of art will be a sextape, but not just any sextape it must costar James Franco.
The performance ends after I play my sextape, become possessed by Tupac and shower with a group of audience members who have become my bitches. The shower is broadcast live over the web and to the gallery theater.
Images 8-9
In “Ambitionz Az a Ridah”,I give a lecture in the style of a TED Talk. I use moments in popular culture and my own personal narratives to discuss what it means to be a Survivor. During the performance I drink my own urine as a true survivor stranded in the desert would need to. The performance ended in the gallery’s shower with two strangers from the audience while being live streamed over the web and in the gallery
Images 10-13.
In “2Pacalypse Now”, I made pilgrimage to Las Vegas, Nevada where Tupac was murdered. On this journey, I enacted my desires, fantasies, channelled Tupac’s spirit and become him.
Images 12-15
In “Still I Rise”, after being rejected from the Reality TV Series Survivor, I realized that I was already on an Island (Manhattan) and struggling to survive my first summer in New York City. I documented my life as it began to unravel.
Images 16-17
“Possessed by Tupac/Becoming Tupac Shakur is a project based in performance video and photography. I have extensively researched the life of Tupac Shakur, in order to come to terms with my aspiration for the American Dream, my fear of death, my desire to remain immortal, and my fascination with surviving. For 7 days leading up to the anniversary of his death, I channelled his spirit and became possessed by him on the 7th day. This was the beginning of our relationship.
Image 18
In “Me Against the World”, I religiously re-watched twenty-three seasons of the hit reality television series Survivor and I catalogued its former contestants. After analyzing what kind of people the show casts, I embodied several of these characteristics and made an audition tape. This audition tape successfully landed me a spot in the semi-finals casting process, consisting roughly of fifty people out of thousands of applicants. I was flown to Los Angeles where I under went interviews, mental challenges and a psychological evaluation. My character believed that as a performance artist she had the training in endurance, pain and humiliation to be the ultimate survivor. Blurring reality and fiction, I also made a video about this process in which, unrelenting, my character remains on a desperate search for attention, mirroring the insatiability of Internet pornography, YouTube and reality television.
Image 19
In “To be a Rock and not to Roll, I explore failure and audience responsibility. After my recent rejection from the Bravo reality TV show Work of Art, I am pushed to my breaking point and I attempt suicide at an art party.
Statement
Everything that I embarked on is a performance that blurs the borders between art and life and fiction and reality. Performance art has become an intrinsic part of my life. It is no longer something that I do, it is who I am. I worked as an undercover shopper at a local department store to apprehend shoplifters. I briefly interned at the Coroner’s Department so that I could view my grandmother’s files and see the crypt she was kept in. I religiously watched reality television and auditioned for shows. I channelled Tupac’s Spirit and became possessed by him. I had myself excused from jury duty by sobbing and reciting a horrific tale during voir dire. I’ve created Thug Life Fitness which is based on Tupac’s Prison Workout and survivor philosophies. I am currently training to compete in my first bikini competition. The above situations are just a few examples of how art, specifically performance art plays a key role in my everyday life.
Images 1-2
In “Tupac’s Prison Workout/ThugLifeFitness”, I’m currently transforming my body, mind, and soul with the guidance of my mentor Tupac Shakur. Tupac embodies the true survivor. Even in his “death”, he has remained immortal. I’ve incorporated his documented prison workouts, his philosophies, and popular street “Thug Workoutz” that can be found on youtube into my daily routine. With the recent fitness craze that is dominating social media sites, I’ve created an instagram account to document my transformation because, after all, #strongisthenewskinny.
Images 3-7
“She Will”, is a performance in the style of a TED Talk in which I use moments in popular culture and personal narratives to discuss how to become the next great artist and what the next great work of art will consist of.
1. Nudity – I ask an audience member to undress me after my ex lover refuses to.
2. Deep- The next work of art needs to have meaning, I tell a very personal story.
3. Pain- I ask the audience for a knife, one member says he has one but will not let me use it in the name of art. I brake a wine glass and begin to carve the popular slang word YOLO (You Only Live Once) into my stomach. Some audience members beg me to stop while one member shouts “don’t forget the hashtag!”
4. Edible- The next great work of art will be edible. I become edible and the audience is invited to taste and eat me.
5. Sextape- The next great work of art will be a sextape, but not just any sextape it must
costar James Franco.
The performance ends after I play my sextape, become possessed by Tupac and shower with a group of audience members who have become my bitches. The shower is broadcast live over the web and to the gallery theater.
Images 8-9
In “Ambitionz Az a Ridah”,I give a lecture in the style of a TED Talk. I use moments in popular culture and my own personal narratives to discuss what it means to be a Survivor. During the performance I drink my own urine as a true survivor stranded in the dessert would need to. The performance ended in the gallery’s shower with two strangers from the audience while being live streamed over the web and in the gallery
Images 10-13.
In “2Pacalypse Now”, I made pilgrimage to Las Vegas, Nevada where Tupac was murdered. On this journey, I enacted my desires, fantasies, channelled Tupac’s spirit and become him.
Images 12-15
In “Still I Rise”, after being rejected from the Reality TV Series Survivor, I realized that I was already on an Island (Manhattan) and struggling to survive my first summer in New York City. I documented my life as it began to unravel.
Images 16-17
“Possessed by Tupac/Becoming Tupac Shakur is a project based in performance video and photography. I have extensively researched the life of Tupac Shakur, in order to come to terms with my aspiration for the American Dream, my fear of death, my desire to remain immortal, and my fascination with surviving. For 7 days leading up to the anniversary of his death, I channelled his spirit and became possessed by him on the 7th day. This was the beginning of our relationship.
Image 18
In “Me Against the World”, I religiously re-watched twenty-three seasons of the hit reality television series Survivor and I catalogued its former contestants. After analyzing what kind of people the show casts, I embodied several of these characteristics and made an audition tape. This audition tape successfully landed me a spot in the semi-finals casting process, consisting roughly of fifty people out of thousands of applicants. I was flown to Los Angeles where I under went interviews, mental challenges and a psychological evaluation. My character believed that as a performance artist she had the training in endurance, pain and humiliation to be the ultimate survivor. Blurring reality and fiction, I also made a video about this process in which, unrelenting, my character remains on a desperate search for attention, mirroring the insatiability of Internet pornography, YouTube and reality television.
Image 19
In “To be a Rock and not to Roll, I explore failure and audience responsibility. After my recent rejection from the Bravo reality TV show Work of Art, I am pushed to my breaking point and I attempt suicide at an art party.
CV
EDUCATION
2013
Columbia University School of the Arts, MFA
2008
Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture
2007
University of Southern California, BFA
SELECTED EXHIBITIONS
2013
Tupac’s 6pack Prison Workout, Abrons Art Center, New York, NY
GUTS, Abrons Art Center, New York, NY
Two Arrabalesques- A Surrealist Cafe, A Performa Event, The Bowery Poetry Club, New York, NY
Just Light, Torrance Shipman, Brooklyn, NY
Dead in August on the LILAC, SITE95, New York, NY
Liars, Actors, and Believers, Cabinet, Brooklyn, NY
Columbia University School of the Arts 2013 MFA Thesis Show, Fisher Landau Center, New York, NY
Still I Rise, Mitchell Gallery, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA
Hopeful, The Penthouse Gallery, Baltimore, MD
2012
First Year Show, The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Art Gallery, New York, NY
2010
Happy Endings 1, The Bacchus, Los Angeles, CA
HeardFEST Presents, HeadFEST, Los Angeles, CA
Happy Endings 2, The Bacchus, Los Angeles, CA
2009
Phantom Presence, The USC University Club, Los Angeles, CA
Low Lives, FiveMyles in Brooklyn, NY; “Diaspora Vibe Gallery in Miami, FL; and labotanica, Houston, TX.
Off the Strip: Two Weeks of Performance and Video Art, Contemporary Art Gallery at Las Vegas, Las Vegas, NV
2008
Misc Video and Performance, NY Studio Gallery, New York, NY
VOS, Smockshop Swapmeet, High Desert Test Sites, Joshua Tree, CA
Cock and Bull, Smockshop Chinatown, Los Angeles, CA
Post Modernism is a Bad Boyfriend, Found Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
Digital Art LA, Phyllis Stein Art, Los Angeles, CA
REDCAT Spring Studios, Roy and Edna Disney Theater, Los Angeles, CA
2007
Aftertaste, Five ThirtyThree, Los Angeles, CA
T(here), Phantom Galleries, Los Angeles, CA
Migration Study, Phantom Galleries, Los Angeles, CA
March Madness: Touch My Politics, Helen Lindhurst Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
2006
Because Stars Live and Die, Helen Lindhurst Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
2005
Boroughs of Los Angeles, The William Grant Still Arts Center, Los Angeles, CA
RESIDENCY
2013
Seminar: A Project by Clifford Owens, Pioneer Works, NY
2008
Skowhegan School of Sculpture and Painting, MA
AWARD
2006
USC Handtmann Photography Prize
PRESS
2009
USC News, October 20, 2009
2009
Las Vegas Weekly, April 16, 2009
2008
LA Citizen Magazine October 2008 issue
2007
LA Weekly, Pick of the Week, Migration Study, September
VISITING ARTIST
2014
Columbia University School of the Arts Visiting Artist Lecture Series (forthcoming)