In my work, I pull from my time spent in Kansas. Specifically, surfing couches and attending basement shows as a hardcore crustpunk. My main concern was being incredulous of everything around me and using humor as a coping mechanism to deal with the crushing reality of being the oldest of 13 children in an economically challenged household.
Using paint, I build a world that uses familiar symbols and cultural markers that I know and love to create a speculative fiction about the inherent absurdity and boredom of living in a flat, Midwestern state. The goal is not to critique, but instead to make a joke that everyone can be in on. I achieve this by using the same humor that kept me sane when I was younger. Sardonic, dead pan jokes about what it means to be a suburban piece of shit serve the same purpose they did before I left: to
