Venus Fly Trap

Soft Sculpture Installation, 107x92x73", 2024

Venus Fly Trap is a self portrait exploring perception, the terror of vulnerability and the elation of being known, and the comfort and chaos that comes with loving and being loved. The lines between the viewer/participant and the artist are blurred as both parties become each other, and both must become vulnerable, to see oneself in another as they enter the space. This very connection, the butterflies-in-stomach hoping-to-god feeling of vulnerability, feels akin to being consumed. To enter this contract of connection, one must be ready to be eaten alive, an immense risk with a gamble of an immense reward. And so, the self portrait becomes a mouth: carpet tongue, canopy palate, blood beads beginning the digestion. In all elements of the piece I explore the tension that exists between comfort and discomfort. The blood does not gush. The consumption is soft, the venus fly trap closes slowly.

There is a reciprocity of belonging to and with someone. 

Does one learn love like breathing? One can asphyxiate trying to do both. 

This love is grand, this love is powerful, this love is intense. It is the belligerence and jubilee of a child god, new to the world and so excited by it, ever powerful but unaware of it. The love explored here, more a love, love, love, love, love, love, l o v e, is one of an innocent, overwhelmed by where to put it all. 

If you were a fly in my venus fly trap but if I was a venus fly trap who loved flies so, so, so, so, so, so much that I held you tight and together we drifted into a forever sleep, with all the time in the world

would you still love me?