51±¬ÁϹÙÍø

How would you describe the work that you do?
What I’m showing [in the exhibition Stepping Back, Looking Forward] is a piece called Dirty Laundry, which is an interactive piece that asks the viewer to participate. There are three main elements to it. . . . Ideally the participant will come in and grab a piece of cotton fabric out of the hamper, put it on the ironing board table top and write out a secret. . . . Once they’ve written that out, they take a little clothes-pin and they pin it up. . . . Essentially they’re airing out their dirty laundry, getting their secrets out. The lingerie sets are themed secrets; the bra will have a secret that relates to the underwear and they are hand stitched. I think secrets are kind of sewn into us as people, and your intimates are the closest clothing to your body, just like your secrets are the closest part to you.

That’s what I’ve included in this show, but [other work that] I do is completely different. [I use] birch panel with acrylic paint, and then I pour resin over the top, which gives it that thick, shine. It also soaks into the wood and gives definition to the wood grain. . . . I would define my work as edgy with a veneer of cute. So, it’s really fun and playful when you first look at my work. Very colorful. Usually you can recognize it because there’s some kind of pop culture reference or character that you know from childhood. Then it gets pretty twisted once you get in a really look at it as references to politics, society, feminism and our culture are elements within the piece that bring this edgy quality.

What drew you to the cute/edgy idea with your paintings?
The relationship to being a creative child comes into play with coloring books. You can see how the thick lines (of my paintings) read as coloring book lines. As a kid I would color in my coloring books and refuse to eat breakfast before I was done making art . . . so, I think the coloring book part of my life has shown up in what I’m making now. It wasn’t always the twisted paintings. That slowly started to develop about three years ago. I had a mentorship with WARM [Women’s Art Resources of Minnesota], . . . and my mentor was Jill Waterhouse. We worked on . . . developing my technique and my message . . . and my voice. This is my next series that I’m making without my mentor and WARM, . . . so it’s really kind of shot off and grown from there.

Is there something that you’re currently working on that you are particularly excited about?
I’m making 3D paintings! I’m putting the acrylic paint inside multiple layers of resin, so there’s depth in between each later. This [series] is based on the seven sins, and [the first piece just finished] is Whinnie the Pooh and Gluttony. . . . I’m also doing The Queen of Hearts, from Alice in Wonderland, as Wrath and Snow White and the Seven Dwarves and Lust. So, I have the first few planned out and I will be exhibiting this new series next year.

Are there ways in which you intend your work to challenge the viewer?
With my paintings . . . they challenge you because it makes you think about your relationship with childhood. So, Whinnie the Pooh is this cute, rolly-polly bear, but when I’m pairing him with the sin of gluttony, it totally sheds a new light on who he is as a character and how we see that in childhood media. So, what are our kids watch teaches us these behaviors. . . . The amount of honey he’s stuffing in his face during the book or cartoon makes him a total glutton, but we don’t really notice that about him until you see my painting.

The piece for the 51±¬ÁϹÙÍø show challenges the audien