MY OTHER CAR IS A BELIEF SYSTEM (2025)
Automotive windshield sunshades, dye-sublimation print on reflective polyethylene-foam composite, 59” × 27”
Ukranian Institute of Modern Art
The series captures afterimages of American belief through its everyday architectures of surface maintenance: feminized bodies, cars, billboards, and “for lease” signs stand in as monuments. A figure crouches in the glow of a camera tripod, reaching toward the lens as if adjusting the terms of her own visibility. In another, a torso lies by the bumper like a perfume ad after a car accident: still glamorous, still selling something, even as the narrative collapses. They assemble and disassemble themselves for the camera, performing a version of femininity shaped by advertisements, influencer culture, and the endless loop of self-surveillance. Berger once wrote that to be a woman is to be always watching herself. The camera watches the girl watching herself becoming an image. Chrome, asphalt, leopard print heels, drugstore glitter: the architecture of American glamour rendered disposable and devotional at the same time. The commercial imagery that once promised transcendence—cars, bodies, logos, leisure—returns in these photographs but only as an afterimage: refusing to resolve into a single seductive whole.
American myths are carried out through advertising and the ways in which women are flattened as accomplices in the sale of products. Vehicle customization and feminine ornamentation blur together. From tattoos and filler to bumper stickers and vinyl wraps, body modification and extension becomes endless. Designers employ shapewear as a masquerade which mystifies one's identity and creates a fantastical concept of a body, cinched and snatched into an insectlike hourglass. We question the artificiality of signs such as these, does decoration have to be shallow or can it be a sacred ritual, a version of the sublime we grant easily to machines and systems. In these spaces, transcendence is automated, belief becomes reflective, and the promise of perfection and progress repeats endlessly.
Upper Peninsula of Michigan Ice Caves (2025)
Framed 35mm photography prints
Color Club Framed 35mm photography prints
Series which explores a deconstructed aquaria space.
Shoot him! (2025) steel hex nuts, rope and a dock cleat
Tidal Pools (2025) cotton and acrylic yarn, beads, oil pastel, photo transfer
Framed 35mm photo prints (2025)
Park No. 571 (2025) tyvek banner, rope, grommets
![]()
![]()
![]()
![]()
![]()
![]()
![]()
![]()
![]()
The Sensational Offerings of The Ocean (2020)
3D scans, ceramic, isomalt, wax candles, plaster, buttercream frosting, image transfers,
Virtual Thesis Show and terra form ation at Congress Yard Projects
The starting point of this work is ways of looking, by this I mean understanding how coral reefs are described in nature documentaries as resilient yet beautiful. This language is gendered towards feminine ornamentation and mirrors language used for survivors of gender violence such as domestic and sexual violence. The works were activated through a dinner, documented and featured in a VR gallery space and at Congress Yard Projects. Finally the works were sold and the funds were donated to a local Sex Worker’s Covid Relief Fund. The funds were donated as a means of exhibiting how coral reef networks and rebuilding reefs mirrors mutual aid networks.
Abstract:
This work examines the body’s relationship to the ocean through coral reefs, queer intimacy and landscaping. It focuses on Ahmed’s use of queer Phenomenology to understand the body’s orientation towards coral reef and seeks to re-imagine the confines of emotional responses to human bodies. The thesis begins with a specific phenomena in which a Barrier Reef in New Caledonia began fluorescing as a way to survive rising water temperatures. The accompanying work employs camp aesthetics and what John Paul Ricco names “the queer feeling of neutral-mourning” to create a moment of indulgence and intimacy with the ocean and oneself through the heightened sensations of the ocean.
Shoot him! (2025) steel hex nuts, rope and a dock cleat
Tidal Pools (2025) cotton and acrylic yarn, beads, oil pastel, photo transfer
Framed 35mm photo prints (2025)
Park No. 571 (2025) tyvek banner, rope, grommets
SAIC Galleries
3D scans, ceramic, isomalt, wax candles, plaster, buttercream frosting, image transfers,
Virtual Thesis Show and terra form ation at Congress Yard Projects
The starting point of this work is ways of looking, by this I mean understanding how coral reefs are described in nature documentaries as resilient yet beautiful. This language is gendered towards feminine ornamentation and mirrors language used for survivors of gender violence such as domestic and sexual violence. The works were activated through a dinner, documented and featured in a VR gallery space and at Congress Yard Projects. Finally the works were sold and the funds were donated to a local Sex Worker’s Covid Relief Fund. The funds were donated as a means of exhibiting how coral reef networks and rebuilding reefs mirrors mutual aid networks.
Abstract:
This work examines the body’s relationship to the ocean through coral reefs, queer intimacy and landscaping. It focuses on Ahmed’s use of queer Phenomenology to understand the body’s orientation towards coral reef and seeks to re-imagine the confines of emotional responses to human bodies. The thesis begins with a specific phenomena in which a Barrier Reef in New Caledonia began fluorescing as a way to survive rising water temperatures. The accompanying work employs camp aesthetics and what John Paul Ricco names “the queer feeling of neutral-mourning” to create a moment of indulgence and intimacy with the ocean and oneself through the heightened sensations of the ocean.
“The rug is a sort of garden that can move across space”, in Heterotopias Foucault examines spaces which exist inbetween and in constant motion of temporality, referencing graveyards previous proximity to churches and so on. The garden emerges as a similar space of constant birth and renewal. The visual trope of the sad girl as seen in music videos and popular fashion culture, is entrenched in a southern gothic space, a kind of graveyard garden. See for example a rotting and rusted truck in Ethel Cain’s music visualizer or Fashion Brand Company’s Forest Camo Virgin Gown. This idea of constant mourning as reflected in the garden becomes instead a way of being a woman and less a trope.
Gothic Gospel (2024) is a 35mm photo printed on a linen tapestry finished with a cotton wip stitch.
Garden Rug (2024) a hand tufted rug made of cotton, wool and acrylic yarn with felt backing. 33”x44”
https://grassgirl.mmm.page/
See linked Interactive website apart of the project with clickable icons (cabbage icon) featuring an interview with previous Lan Su Chinese Garden employee Yasmin Mayer.
Garden Rug (2024) and Swamp Ass (2024), a wearable sculpture bikini with tufted, lace details and fishing lures, installed at the California Clipper, for Handle with Care, a show curated by cherryknot.
“Established in 1937, the California Clipper is Humboldt Park’s longest-standing neighborhood bar with a classic Chicago tavern vibe, seasonal cocktails, and live music. Born just four years after the end of prohibition, the California Clipper has evolved over the decades, weaving its roots into the fabric of its community.”
Gothic Gospel installed and activated at Everything in Spring 2026 as store window display.
Gothic Gospel (2024) is a 35mm photo printed on a linen tapestry finished with a cotton wip stitch.
Garden Rug (2024) a hand tufted rug made of cotton, wool and acrylic yarn with felt backing. 33”x44”
https://grassgirl.mmm.page/
See linked Interactive website apart of the project with clickable icons (cabbage icon) featuring an interview with previous Lan Su Chinese Garden employee Yasmin Mayer.
Garden Rug (2024) and Swamp Ass (2024), a wearable sculpture bikini with tufted, lace details and fishing lures, installed at the California Clipper, for Handle with Care, a show curated by cherryknot.
“Established in 1937, the California Clipper is Humboldt Park’s longest-standing neighborhood bar with a classic Chicago tavern vibe, seasonal cocktails, and live music. Born just four years after the end of prohibition, the California Clipper has evolved over the decades, weaving its roots into the fabric of its community.”
Gothic Gospel installed and activated at Everything in Spring 2026 as store window display.