KJ artist statement

My work creates interruptions, and reveals underlying narratives and constructed spaces and histories. I investigate reinterpretations of spaces, symbology, and history; in other words, how spaces, symbols, archetypes of power and powerlessness can be interrupted and reinterpreted, and how my work can enter through those openings in order to reveal and/or construct new narratives. These projects operate in the liminal space between fact and fiction, and are driven by my own perceptions of these histories/spaces/collections and their inconsistencies and relationship to both fact and fiction.

My current practice employs these methods to investigate two distinct histories. The first of these bodies of work, is a Museum that reinterprets the history of the political while the second, the Autobiography, investigates the history of the personal.

In my newest work, the Autobiography, I am interested in the impossible attempts at reconstruction of memories from a life not lived and also the recurring orphan trope in popular culture and literature that fetishizes the orphan and the adoptee. I am interested in bringing the trope to light and exploring it and doing so from the perspective of an adoptee who does not have any family history. The popular story of the fictional heroic adoptee (often with superpowers) is juxtaposed with the real story of trying to recover one’s own hidden/secret and lost history.

In the work I challenge the cultural myths that society has built up about orphans and adoptees. These stories are not from our voice but are rather a glamorized notion of the lone individual, unfettered by parents and heritage, who is free to fulfill all of society’s childhood fantasies.

The project explores themes of identity, displacement, reconstruction, and deconstruction. It is composed of various media and includes both found photos and actual photos taken on my recent “homeland tour”, as well as videos, objects, an artist book, and sculpture.

There is always an inherent conflict between the truth and illusion as an adopted person. The conflict is explored through the recovery of lost childhood memories from my alternate past.