This series is based on my extensive and past experience as a registered nurse, which gave me insight into the human body and all types of microbiology in a completely intimate way. In the world of science, a gene can be taken from one organism and implanted into another completely changing the original structure. There is a real threat that organisms will be created and act in a way that we cannot fully anticipate. We cannot control the impact that these organisms will have in the world going forward. Sometimes objects are formed that become a sort of genetic pollution and other times the resulting organisms are very useful. In my work I explore all of the organisms that result when you haphazardly combine these genes.

As a registered nurse, I have seen what is hidden inside our bodies which has enabled me to create these abstracted portraits. Some of the work is interpreted from a feminine perspective, of how often our heart disease is misdiagnosed and of our roles as mothers who are concerned with what toys our children are playing with. In other parts, I draw from the experiences that I had at my grandfather’s gas station, a very masculine enclave in Bayonne, New Jersey, full of car parts and rusted metal. At the same time, I create materials using many of the same techniques that women in my family have used for hundreds of years. Like my grandmother who was always knitting, I create fabrics but instead of using yarn I weave with toy soldiers and electrical ties. In creating these newly found objects, I combine materials that are not typically put together. I put baby nipples with nails and plastic soldiers with screws. Sometimes these materials appear to be fur-like, but are actually made of nails and screws or electrical ties, blurring the line between masculine and feminine. They are made to look feminine and flower-like, but when touched they are sharp sometimes to the point of being dangerous. I combine these fabrics with recycled metal like crane parts and videos to create genetically modified organisms. It is work similar to that of a scientist in a lab.