Paintings 2022.

I paint and sculpt cartoonish bodily creatures occupying dreamlike spaces. Through these figures, I examine our existence where the serious and the laughable coexist. These fanciful scenes explore themes of identity, agency, self-determination, and longing. It is a distinctively humorous and seductive universe, both beautiful and hideous.

Formally, I work with semi-familiar shapes and ludic colours, which help to shape these ambiguous and crooked narratives. In the sculptural pieces, I reimagine figures from her paintings. I am is curious about how three-dimensional forms support these bodies while simultaneously controlling them. This power affects and works through the body. Shea sees it as a metaphor for our modern struggles.

My work has a certain perversity, humour, and fragility to it. The bodily elements in both paintings and sculptures are unsettling, quietly humorous and subversive (verging on grotesque). They appear to be both comical and tragic—as if a sense of humour is critical to survival in this strange world I created. Hesitant and restless, they waver between feelings of enthusiasm and despair. This awkward tension explores a sense of confusion, which affects our moral, social, and political hopes.