My work explores the sense in which home is the sort of thing you metaphorically carry on your back—like a hermit crab—and the implications of that idea. I’m interested in the unpredictable shapes nostalgia takes and the ambivalent and frequently contradictory attitudes we hold toward the things we carry with us, in light of what they represent.

In recent work, I’ve been playfully tackling metaphors about the circle of life and the road of life, along with different conceptions of movement and change. I’ve been experimenting with painting cut paper in order to suggest a set of paper dolls on the verge of action, inviting the possibility of a variety of “choose your own adventure”–type narratives. The collections of objects often have an underlying logic, with varying degrees of transparency, so the work presents itself like a story to be read or a set of fragments to be deciphered.