Depicting movement through layered silhouetted poses, Assembly uses gestural “drawing” cut-outs of people I observed in public spaces, posed live models, photographs, as well as my memory and imagination to explore the dynamic human form.  For this series, I recognize both the positive cut-outs and the negative spaces left behind in the paper as art.  The positive paper doll-like figures assemble in colorful horizontal rows on large white paper that allow their unique shapes and colorful prints to stand out.  Meanwhile, the negatives are assembled, arranged, and glued together on smaller sheets of paper, forming a single figure made from multiple overlapping, wallpaper-like layers.  The arrangement of both projects is intuitive and experimental, going with what colors feel right in the moment, an important practice in not overthinking too much.  The figures themselves demonstrate a similar kind of freedom as they stretch their limbs, dance, recline, and be.  For this project, I am inspired by the work of Florine Démosthène, Henri Matisse and his jazz cutouts, and Kara Walker for the ways they play with multimedia figural silhouettes.  I also appreciate the work of Pamela Phatsimo Sunstrum and Jorinde Voigt for their bold use of color and pattern, specifically Pamela’s unique superimposition of these elements and Jorinde’s discrete separation of them.  Although these figures reject being defined by exact proportions, I am grateful for my work in realism (though I was extremely frustrated by it at first) for teaching me about embracing curves, abstracting the body into familiar shapes, and learning to rely on your embodied intuition. 

negative collages

positive cuttings