PROJECTS

TO ROT AND RESTORE





A bruise is a closed wound, created by impact, that appears as an area of discolored skin and ruptured underlying blood vessels. Beyond its textbook definition, we can look at fruit, which bruises in the opposite manner than the term describes, and compare the two views. A person’s bruise will heal as time progresses, while the fruit eventually bruises, regardless of impact, and continues to decompose rather than heal itself. Although this is a dramatic comparison, how does this stand true to our relationship with health? Who is to say that by not healing, and letting a wound or problem worsen, we naturally are going to get better with time? If our mind or body is the fruit, we would want to prevent or fix the ‘rot,’ rather than letting our injuries worsen, as life goes on.

Whether you blame natural causes or the fate of existing, time will continue to pass and life continues to decay, no matter what we try to do to prevent it. To Rot and Restore comes from a need to find answers in this "rot" and uncover issues of my personal life to continue moving forward from past events 

In 2020, my house caught fire in the middle of the night, instantly changing my perspective of what it means to have a childhood home. I am fortunate enough to have rebuilt in the same location where I have always lived, waking up to the same view of my street, the one I still remember from my youth. This body of work is filled with evidence and symbolism alluding to many scattered and non-specific events, all leading back to my experiences growing up. Some images seem unexplainable and unfit to have existed in a home, while others include simple and feasible concepts; all approached with a common theme. I am using this project to show depictions of actual decay and restoration in both a fictional sense and in comparison to my personal narrative and life stories. By finding the beauty in absurdity and what remains of my youth, I am sharing my connection with this body of work and how I approach topics of my childhood while moving on with my life.

By getting hung up on the past, we don’t allow ourselves to move forward, even if we shut out a problem completely. We are left to question ourselves and previous events that took place, even when the evidence remains right in front of us. Not enough attention is paid to small details and the mundane. If we don’t stop and look around, we are going to miss life as it passes before our eyes.