Expanded Artist Statement:

This installation presents four hills formed from a cement paper clay mixture, chosen specifically for its sandy texture to mimic soil. These hills appear to put pressure on the foundation of a house; one that the viewer cannot see, as if it has been pulled up and moved, leaving only its imprint behind.

The exterior of the hills is intentionally rough and strong, while the inside is lined with soft cotton fabric, a material that visually exudes warmth even without touch. This interior space is in the process of being repaired, with natural-dyed pink elements and delicate stitching symbolizing an ongoing act of care and restoration.

Surrounding the piece is shredded paper, fragments of a pro-fracking memoir written by an Oklahoma- based oil baron, repurposed into both the paper clay mixture and the tufts of paper grass growing from the hills. The shredded paper also serves another function: it creates noise, symbolizing the endless cycle of external voices mixing with the artist’s own thoughts until they become unintelligible. At the center of the installation, suspended like an altar piece, is a lone window. For the artist, this window serves as both a portal and an anchor to reality. Though the house remains absent to the viewer, the artist envisions its walls, floorboards, and kitchen cupboards fully. The window offers a small glimpse

into that private mental space, inviting the viewer to "play house" within a fabricated world that is deeply personal and rarely shared.

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Public Art Proposal for ArtPrize 2025: 

My proposed installation for ArtPrize 2025 is a large-scale sculptural landscape rooted in the excavation of memory. Building off my earlier installation Cornerstones, this piece continues to explore themes of resilience, cultural displacement, and the shifting meaning of home. At its center is a fabricated crater, a sunken outline that marks the absence of a house. This absence becomes the structure. Fused glass panels are embedded into the inner walls of the hills, framed in steel and embellished with embedded powdered glass and iron inclusions. These surfaces hold fractured maps and small, scattered text. They invite viewers to look closer, to search for meaning, and to sit with the unknown. As daylight fades, lights installed behind the glass slowly come to life, offering a soft internal glow that speaks to the persistence of memory. Surrounding the crater are gentle, grassy hills. The exterior of the piece feels open and familiar. The contrast between the outside and inside reflects the tension between the homes we remember and the ones we carry with us. A single cast iron door stands open at one edge. Heavy and handmade, it acts both as a boundary and an invitation. Iron is a communal process, shaped through many hands, and that labor is part of the story. On the opposite side of the crater, a second passage opens, less defined and more intuitive. It represents a shift from structured ideas of home to something more fluid, connected to the land and the internal spaces we shape for ourselves. Each passage is marked by a cast iron plaque. One asks, Where are you from? The other asks, How did you get here? This piece comes from my own questions about home. What it means to lose it, leave it, return to it, or never quite belong to it. But these questions reach far beyond my personal experience. I believe this space will resonate with anyone who has felt disconnected, uprooted, or in search of belonging. My hope is to offer a quiet place of reflection for those navigating their own shifting sense of home.