Firework
 
Single-channel HD video (6:30 min.)
installation, loop, color, sound, red paint
2018
 
Red, white, and blue stained-glass jelly 
with motorized turntable
2018

Installation Views: 
The Van Every/Smith Galleries, Davidson, North Carolina 
The McKinney Ave Contemporary, Dallas, TX 

Full Text: HERE

Firework is a computer-generated series of firecrackers paired with an audio recording of personal prose. Explosive bursts on screen make legible the queer outline of the artist's current life, which America would rather see destroyed, erased, or kept silent.
 
In this work, the artist traces both the historical narrative of, and her own personal connection with, gelatin as a source material. Gelatin was developed as early as 1682, and in the early 1900s was given to immigrants entering America through Ellis Island. Colorful flavored gelatin was branded as "America's Favorite Desert," even though it was at that time only accessible to the upper class. In this work she traces ideas of patriotism, consumption, and the correlation between sexual harassment and independence.She is specifically interested in looking at gelatin as a material that frames social dominance: an intergroup theory of social hierarchy and oppression.
 
This work is installed along with a single red, white, and blue gelatin sculpture. All glass gelatin sculptures are produced by blowing hot glass directly into antique Jell-O molds, replacing animal by-products with the artist's female breath.