My art explores social justice issues affecting women, including reproductive rights and sexual health, through an eco-feminist, environmentalist lens. Having been surrounded by inspiring women at my all-girls high school and throughout my life, I feel deeply connected to feminist issues. 

Mixed-media collage is my most common artistic approach because it allows me to bring together disparate materials, images, and ideas. I also work in video, sculpture, oil paint, photography, and performance. My intellectual ideas inform my processes and mediums, selecting what best serves each project to create art that has the power to evoke emotion.

Witnessing our shifting political landscape and the erosion of reproductive rights over the course of my life has ignited a deep passion to use my voice through artmaking. Motivated by volunteering, club leadership, and dialogue exchange, I found that I naturally began intertwining political messages into my artwork using recurring symbolic motifs. 

Margaret Atwood's novel “The Handmaid's Tale” has been a deep influence on my creative process. Atwood famously stated that nothing in her novel was fabricated, and that every example of women’s experiences already existed in the real world. This shaped my reading of the novel and the parallels I see in the world today. With my mixed media artwork “The Eyes”, I combined images, colors, and symbols that reflect themes from the novel. I included a large physical wire eye sculpture, which I placed on top of vintage collage images of women from a photo magazine. The eye adds to the rigidity of the piece, while highlighting ideas of the male gaze and repression of women's rights. 

Eco-feminism is a philosophical, political, and social movement that examines the relationship between the oppression of women and the exploitation of the natural environment. This philosophy has heavily influenced my thinking, mirrors my observations of a political climate that resists ecological protection, and has coincidentally impacted artists I admire. Photographer and performance artist Ana Mendieta created the “Silueta” series of “earth-body” performances, exploring how the female body and the Earth intertwine. Her work is powerful to me because she portrays women in a way that is both vulnerable and commanding, merging women with the earth to reclaim a sense of belonging. She successfully channels emotions and feelings into her art without direct words, which I aspire to emulate. 

In my photocollage “Swirls,” I explore my own understanding of eco-feminism by layering a rough silhouette of a female body with a photograph of a flower earthwork I created. The artwork blends femininity with nature as a way to comment on their mistreatment. My goal was to show how their destruction is rooted in the same male-led, power-hungry patriarchal systems and ideas that influence all of my pieces. 

As I grow as an artist, I want to deepen my exploration of the relationship between the female body, the natural world, and systems of power. I will continue to engage with eco-feminist theory and artists who explore these ideas in different ways. I also intend to push beyond the materials I am comfortable with by experimenting further with performance, installation, and Earth-based materials. It will continue to be my priority to create work that is intellectually grounded, but also instinctive, emotional, and deeply felt.