Grapes Pickles

Everyday objects and household ingredients are embedded and transformed into my paintings, drawings, sculptures, large-scale installations, and videos. My works are inspired by the wonder and curiosity of child-like perspective and the innate desire to create.

Some of my earliest memories include desperately stuffing objects into an Easy Bake Oven, eating Cheerios from a Centrum bottle in the darkness of the closet, and pretending strawberry-kiwi-scented hairspray could cure blemishes. My grandfather had a small furniture reupholstery business and collected porcelain dolls; great uncle wove baskets and baby bassinets; grandmother crocheted afghans and spun outworn clothes into quilts. Growing up in East Tennessee, America, I was trained to build identity via collecting, consuming, and making.

Inside the wasteful consumption of a commodified society lie elements of primal and cultural survival. There is a predisposition to retreat from threat and danger into an elusive universe driven by impulse and necessity. Not only is nature emulated, it is then collected, brought inside, put on a shelf, or plugged into proximity. Simple functions of manmade products bring comfort and security—but can also illuminate imagination and desire. It is within these constructs that the potential to disrupt the cycle lies.