are we here for ourselves alone?

The aesthetic of Los Angeles has little to do with the hundreds of plants that create the native ecosystem of the county. We have long favored the imports of colonialism. Both our city tree, the coral tree, and our city flower, the bird of paradise, come from South Africa. We’ve created an urban environment that is totally dependent on imported water and human intervention, which does nothing to connect us to the place in which we live or to support our increasingly failing ecosystem. California ranks number eight on the biodiversity hotspot list, a list that ranks places of great biodiversity— 15% of which must be endemic—that have lost over 70% of the open land.

Moving between sculpture, installation and photography, I use the language of color and the objects and materials of Los Angeles to piece together a sense of place, both Pre-columbian and manufactured. Long dead giant bird of paradise leaves painted in various shades of green epoxy masquerade, as verdant, and ideal, while in contrast the dead looking branches of the encelia californica sit dormant and wait out the summer heat. Wildfire debris from the 2017 La Tuna Canyon fire- encased in epoxy and salt, act as a time capsule of drought, increasing temperature and the misuse of water.

Through my work I reexamine how we inhabit the landscape of Southern California. How did we come to a place of incredible biodiversity and find it wanting? How did we abandon the balance of the ecosystem for the sake of aesthetics? Ultimately asking, are we here for ourselves alone?