Artist Statement

My work is explores my experience of being born and raised in a fundamentalist religious cult, the Jehovah’s Witnesses, and the aftermath of leaving the Witnesses. I was taught that Armageddon could come at any moment, and only the true worshippers of Jehovah would survive and receive everlasting life on a Paradise Earth. My purpose in life was predetermined and designed around being a Jehovah’s Witness. There was room for very little else. It was a life of isolation, guilt, and fear.

My practice is interdisciplinary, using drawing, painting, puppetry, and animation together to unfold a narrative of indoctrination and liberation. My artwork helps me to confront the fact that I am an apostate, take back my power and my voice, and speak out against a system of oppression hiding in plain sight. I make this work for myself, for others who have also had these experiences, and to bring attention to the signs of authoritarianism. I use my work to celebrate how I have forcefully taken the things that I had been denied since birth: an education, a career, a voice, a free life where two plus two always equals four.

Reverberate, 32 x 32 inches, acrylic on paper, 2019.