Your recent body of work ‘Lavish Lifestyle’, exhibiting at Magic Pony, transports the viewer to a land that doesn’t exist. Do these worlds come to you in dreams, or are they based off of real places?
The Lavish Lifestyle is about being able to reimagine the possibilities of our visual surroundings. There are so many incredible natural phenomenas in our galaxy! So many mystical, beautiful occurrances for us to discover. I hope that my collages could leave even the tiniest hint of this sense of mystery and intrigue.

You painted the walls of the gallery in such a free flowing, uninhibited manner, while your collages are meticulous and deliberate. Can you articulate this contradiction? Can you also speak to installation as part of your practice?
I see the two-dimensional collages I create as vignettes of a larger atmosphere, or environment. It seems natural to make the walls of the gallery involved, to solidify the symbiotic relationship that a gallery shares with the art it houses. The gestures that I used to paint the walls mimic the flow of the horizon lines within the collages. I felt that adding an extra dimension to the work would make the collages seem more like they were emerging from the walls, rather than hanging static.

Your collages are so fantastical and seem to come straight out of your subconscious. Do you work intuitively? What role does research play in your practice?
The work i make is the result of slow roasting tonnes of difference reference points… Ranging from Malevich, who was obsessed with the idea of the infinite, to my favorite writer Richard Brautigan. I love researching natural phenomena by looking at the world in both the macro and the micro.
During my BFA I moved through a lot of different mediums, but never felt particularly dedicated to just one of them. After I graduated I began to feel less pressure to impress peers with supplies and technical skills, which allowed me to start combining materials and work a lot more intuitively.

There is something reminiscent of the early 90’s in your material and palate choices. Is this a conscious choice? To what extent does nostalgia play a role in your work?
I was a pretty high energy kid- I grew up on a dairy farm, and spent my free time playing outside (building forts) with the neighbors, or baking and crafting with my mom. I had like 15 different bonne bell lip smackers, wore glitter all over my face and had blueberry scented glitter hair gel that i dumped on, every time I put my hair in a pony.

I guess ‘nostalgia’ plays a role in my work in a round-a-bout kind of way.. I have been obsessed with glitter and colour since I was a kid, and have definitely attached a certain kind of romanticism to childhood naivety.

Do you believe in magic? How does this (if it does at all) influence your work?
Magic surrounds! To me, magic is an ever changing state of mind. We are all constantly processing new information, which sparks new ideas and new relationships. Magic Realism articulates the most interesting and intriguing parts of this information - found in nature, personal experience, dreams and the psychic spirit. Making art as a ‘magic realist’ allows me to share a personalised vision of my reality.

Lastly, What’s next for you? Anything exciting we can look forward to?
I am co-curating a show with Julia Dickens at the OCAD student gallery, which opens in Feburary of 2014! ✧･ﾟ:* ｡ ♡