Emigrating at a young age, I've always felt a part of things but was actually apart from most everything. So in my work, I think about connection, especially an underlying structure of everything around us that unites us to each other and to nature, time and space. Inspired by Islamic geometric patterns, I tessellate images from everyday life to create rich and complex surface structures in/with paint, print, and wood collage. In the process, dimensions of my subjects are simultaneously revealed and concealed, enabling me to explore the concept of things that are both present and veiled – like my hair, which I cover with a scarf in public. Using repeated geometric shapes that fit closely together creates a sense of order through which I understand the natural world and my personal experience. Rather than constraining my freedom, this approach provides a scaffold for experimenting with color, texture, and spatial possibilities.
