The Belle Series continues the investigation of identity by integrating images of myself with my grandmother, great grandmother, and other relatives dating back to the early 1900’s and historical stereographic images of Native and Black American women from the Turn of the Century. The stereograph, being a popular medium for disseminating images of Americans during the Turn of the Century, was also instrumental in helping create visual representations of American life and inform American identity- investigating both shifts in time, ideology, and representation- capturing the nuances of identity development, conceptualization, and intersectionality with social-political frameworks across generations.

Americana continues to investigate multiple histories and identities, specifically as it relates to American identity formation. The work incorporates images of astronomical objects and large areas of the night sky, microscopic pictures of melanin, and stem cells continuing the micro/macro relationship within the work.  Framed in a classical oval reminiscent of Victorian photographic portraiture, the work references the biological (eggs, cells, etc.) as well as the scientific (slide gels, medical/scientific slides) and illustrates implicit and explicit identities integrated within one individual. 
 

Relating the pixel, used in digital imaging with an organism's observable characteristics through the consideration, exploration, and manipulation of ethnic patterns, astrophotography, and metaphor the work illustrates multiple histories integrated within an individual.  Codification is also investigated visually, relating the pixel to "building blocks" of both the digital medium and conceptual framework. 

Through the merging of images, I seek to create a hybrid, which exposes the shifting of identities in relationship to both historical and social political understandings of American history and citizenry. Using my own family history as a template, I explore the relationship between the indigenous and the diaspora, linking the histories between both Native American and African American as central to the formation of the Americas as an economic, political, and cultural force.

I Am Katrina delves into a myriad of cultural and personal territories: issues of identity, history, diaspora, class, integration, mobility, and narrative. Moreover, the series asks: Whose gaze is this? What is the American Dream and who has access to it? What is Homeland? What is origin, what is the macrocosm, what are shifting observations? Using images from numerous sources, her photographs and collages posit these questions in metaphor and allegory, setting up new and poetic narratives. Utilizing original images shot on location in Louisiana combined with internet and media searches along with the vision of other artists and scientists (biochemist Dr. Mona Monfared), the work is collaged and manipulated, integrating many avenues into a collective voice and expansive gaze.

The Mother’s Daughter Series continues the investigation of identity by integrating images of myself with generations of women within my family. The work also incorporates images of the cosmic, with microscopic images of melanin and stem cells continuing the micro/macro relationship within the work, while also taking an oval like shape, referencing both the biological, eggs, cells, etc. but also the scientific, slide gels, medical/scientific slides, as well as Victorian photographic portraiture. The work illustrates implicit and explicit identities integrated within one individual. Through the merging of images, I seek to create a hybrid, which exposes the shifting of identities in relationship to both historical and social political understandings. 

Our Little Conspiracy: Collaboration with Poet Anna Badua

The image of brick has become iconic in its relationship to graffiti, street, and urban art. The local of the city or urban function not only as physical locales, but designate a proxy of race, class, narrative, and group affiliation. The brick therefor functions as a ground to redesignate space, challenging the notion and aesthetics of the urban, with the Sub Urban. Shifting the locale to the suburban, the narrative constructed on the brick grounds conflate multiple perspectives and vignettes from popular culture, art history, and the democracy of the internet.