As a recovering Catholic, I have come to realize that I am constantly creating Reliquaries with my work. My pieces always contain fragments of each subject, from personal jewelry or articles of clothing, to bones, teeth, razor blades, hair, tears, ashes, old writing, beloved pet snake skins, personal treasures, lost memorabilia, love letters.
For years now I have been sinking pieces in epoxy resin, essentially encasing them like flies in amber, as if to preserve a fleeting moment for eternity, or a gesture as a timeless monument . It is the spirit of the individual I am attempting to capture through these physical relics and clues, but the piece itself becomes an artifact.
Many of my subjects are living and breathing, however, just as many are ghosts.
In the most basic of terms these are portraits, but they call to mind stained glass Cathedral windows: larger than life, luminous, iconic, eternal.