gone before / then & now
2013-2015
statement
With this particular body of work, I want to show the direct relationship between my inspiration and my pieces of jewelry. Recently much of my research has involved studying the formal, structural, and emotional qualities present in Victorian mourning jewelry and memento mori. I have been carving upholstery foam into replicas of mourning and sentimental jewelry. The pieces are purposefully oversized, awkward, and clunky, which is in many ways similar to the mourning process. The largeness of the pieces is reminiscent of our substantial lack of understanding and general inability to deal with death in a meaningful way. After photographing the pieces, I created a series of digital images in which I superimpose the image of the original mourning piece with my own.