ARTIST STATEMENT: My work walks the line between taxidermy, toy and sculpture. Each sculpture is meticulously fabricated to create an unnervingly accurate but slightly off version of the natural animal. Evolution has always held a particular fascination for me, informing how I create and group the animals in my work. As I’ve read and dug through museum collections to research my pieces, western science’s mania for labeling, codifying and collecting has stood out. More so, we categorize animals in two ways; scientifically and emotionally. Despite all of our effort to map out how life evolved, carefully defining orders and families, we still by and large judge animals by an irrational system of emotional morality. Most of all the sculptures deal with vulnerability. A stuffed bear is the enduring toy of childhood. The fierce predator declawed and defanged to become a child’s beloved friend and sense of security. The pieces explore the tension between the reality of the animal and the vulnerability imbued in toy; the wild and the tame, the beautiful and grotesque.