Beyond Stereotype
Studio mock up: Fabric dye on cotton and silk. 10' x 8'w x 8'd
“Human Impact: Stories of the Opioid Epidemic brings together eleven artists to explore the consequences of the opioid crisis through the lens of those who have been deeply impacted. The invited artists participated in substance use training and met with affected families for intimate conversations about their experiences with opiates.”
Fuller Craft Museum
My family lost their loved one from a fentanyl overdose. She was 23, loved and loving, and up until her death, healthy by all appearances. I was struck by how indiscriminate opioid addiction is and how the stereotype of the substance user as a degenerate, disenfranchised human being is so wrong.
My goal was to personify those “types” of individuals who become substance users. The criteria was that the work needed to be beautiful, vibrant, serene, seductive, and be able to portray light and darkness, hope and melancholy.
The layered figures in Beyond Stereotype, create patterns and abstract the subjects making a cocoon-like den contributing to the miasma born out of substance use disorders.