wallflower
ABOUT WALLFLOWER
Wallflower was a site-specific enamel and wallpaper installation that I created for American Enamels at The Society of Arts and Crafts in 2009. Wallflowergrew out of floral patterns, and the ability of their stylized tendrils to creep into one’s subconscious. Natural flora have been an ever-present subject in pattern and decoration, but stylized and controlled in rigid patterns. This installation considers what could happen if such constraints were lifted.This installation was inspired by my interest in the psychological effects of pattern in domestic spaces and American culture. During a difficult time in my family’s life when one of my family members was suffering from depression and anxiety, I found myself disturbed by the audacity of the happy flowers crawling over the walls in our home. I felt that this was a plague that many families silently suffer, and focused on wallpaper patterns as a metaphor for the tendency of families to cover up their realities—to put up a front, a veneer, as wallpaper covers cracked walls and pattern camouflages or transforms an object or space. I began to consider the spaces we live in as witnesses to realities that often go unacknowledged.
