BFA, Studio Art
Dual Discipline Focus
Primary Focus: Jewelry & Metalsmithing
Secondary Focus: Printmaking & Book Arts
Artist Statement
Kitsch and Queer Domestic Luxury
This body of work focuses on deconstructing domestic gendered objects of status and luxury by synthesizing historically bourgeoisie patterning with American proletarian aesthetics. The belt buckles, houseware display, and wallpaper design create a domestic nook within the white walled gallery that the average viewer can ideally relate to. The belt buckles hold the designs while sustaining the durability that working class individuals want from an item of higher value. Enamel, a material originally developed to imitate precious stones, adds to this concept, with the etched designs drawing from intricate baroque interior design styles and subverting the styles’ original exclusivity.
The color palette across the mediums is taken directly from my childhood home that was filled with colorful patterning and interior décor from the 1970’s because my working-class family did not have the money to replace any of it. The ceramic wares and the wallpaper act as vessels for the patterns, with the mass-produced dishware cabinets in homes existing as a display of prosperity alongside the wallpaper acting as a decorative counterpart for imitating luxury in the working-class home. The belt buckles, dishware, and screen-printed wallpaper all exist in the chaotic, domestic space in varying ways to recreate the culturally ‘gaudy’ patterning within homes while also displaying the kitschy hand-me-downs that working people treasure for sentimental and utilitarian purposes.
I utilize the patterning and the historical context of luxurious decorations in the domestic sphere to create a new proletarian aesthetic of luxury that takes pride in the persistence of the working class without comparing it to an existing bourgeoise standard of design. The collection of forms synthesizes a new style of abstract patterning in common objects to elicit a sense of pride in working class viewers that do not often see themselves and the aesthetics of their lives represented with admiration in art galleries.
