“I am a narrative writer-director as well as a large scale photorealistic portrait painter. Everything I create comes from a deep love for humanity and my obsession to find the sources of our most heartbreaking societal conflicts. From my point of view, the answers to our biggest challenges can be reduced to love and shame. My perspective comes from a childhood of abuse at the hands of an alcoholic parent, where “love” and shame were on a constant and unpredictable loop.”
“Growing up on the other side of the tracks, you have to be resourceful to cross them––resourcefulness is my most valuable tool. I’ve been able to materialize so much value out of so little over the course of my life. Through painting, I’ve been able to take $500 and make a masterpiece or two haha. With film, I know I can do the same with just a few million dollars.”
“I simply could not communicate during my childhood and adolescence… maybe even into my early twenties. My dad seemed to intentionally misunderstand me as an act of abuse and he intimidated me into silence in various and dark forms. I had no chance at healthy socialization with other kids and went inward. I desperately wanted to find a place with people who understood me and instead of learning how to speak and play, I figured out early on that if I became really great at something, I could sort of skip that part. Obviously I learned later, this approach has its limits, but it served me pretty well from Kindergarten to 12th grade. I remember thinking I have to become so good at art that I can’t be ignored and it will get me out of here. I was six. We didn’t have money. I asked for cash from people on holidays and had my first little start-ups haha. I saved up and bought art books at AC Moore. The one that set me up for later was a book on how to draw realistic portraits. I cried for hundreds of hours in frustration figuring out that shadows aren’t lines, it’s a value of darkness… lines look like wrinkles.”
“I'm not telling a story, I'm grabbing your wrist and dragging you onto a ride you may not be ready for. That's how I've experienced life—I could never be ready for the abuse—in so many forms—assault, mind games, manipulation, humiliation, violence. My brain needs that relentless activity so the work is visual, musical and energetic; deep, but full of love and has my self-aware, big-picture sense of humor. The films are immersive experiences that pull the audience into theory, thought and new perspectives beyond the film. Thematically, my personal experience is all over the screen. I’m a queer woman and that’s in my films. I’m also a victim of multiple sexual assaults, so sometimes that shows up. More recently, my characters are falling in love, and they’re doing it when everything else is falling apart. It’s me, digging out my most intense experiences to feast on.”