#whileistayed
2018 – 2020
Exhibition statement
#whileistayed embodies the story of living with domestic violence. The question often asked in a domestic violence situation is, "Why does she stay?" The reasons a person stays can vary depending on the situation, support structure, economic factors, and other issues specific to that victim. However, every person's story is a story of survival. Domestic violence is hidden from view and sometimes may even be hidden from the victim — the slow decline into this world of abuse tends to be systematic; the brutality may begin with cutting words and isolation before it moves to cutting blows. Suddenly, the victim awakens and recognizes the violence as well as the barrage of empty excuses, promises, and apologies as a piece of abuse. Because talking about violence can bring shame and fear to the survivor — whether the abuse is recent or decades in the past — it is important for those who are able to speak, to use their own voice — in written, oral, or visual language. Each of the images in this series carries its own unique story of a burning memory of domestic violence and in the end, survival.
Artist statement
My work is influenced by the veiled layers that simultaneously shroud and reveal the truth of the violence that happens behind closed doors. My art attempts to give a visual voice to the emotions, moments, memories, and experiences related to domestic and sexual violence.
The female form runs through all of my work — layered, present, insistent. Alongside it, the written word: sometimes legible, sometimes not, but always there as mark and as meaning. I am drawn to the tension between visibility and concealment, between what is shown and what is kept hidden. My materials and methods reflect this tension — images built in layers, text embedded and obscured, surfaces that reward close looking.
For me, design and art are separated only by intent. My art practice runs parallel to my teaching and my research — it is the place where I follow that intent into territory words cannot reach. The psychological dimensions of visual communication that I study academically find their most direct expression here, in work that does not explain but rather asks the viewer to feel the weight of what is being carried.
This work is intended as witness, not spectacle. It exists because talking about violence can bring shame and fear to the survivor — whether the abuse is recent or decades in the past — and because those of us who are able to speak have a responsibility to use our voices. In written, oral, or visual language. Each piece is an act of that responsibility.