Mannequin Avenue
2013

The beginning of 2013, I made the decision to leave my home of Great Falls, Montana to return to my birthplace of Seattle, Washington. This decision sparked an self-reflective process of acceptance; in which, I made physical my vexations and passions over the trials I had experienced in Montana. This process became Mannequin Avenue.
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This series of drawings, watercolors, and mixed media is my personal mythology. Inspired by my life decisions, fairy tales, and the album Ever After by Marianas Trench, these self portraits pieces are idealized surrogates displaying essences of past trials. The theatrical and carnivalesque figures I call Mannequins, are accessorized and highly decorated with symbols that explore self-recognition and vulnerability. The situation that embraces the Mannequin is called the Avenue: a metaphorical route taken to reach possibility. The possibilities of the Avenue are provided by a symmetry-mocking frame and expressed through the coded iconography of insects, flowers and stained glass symbols. Mannequin Avenue is the finished epitaph of my experiences in Montana.