Meet Maddie

Does individual identity curate our environments, or do environmental variables infiltrate the idea of selfhood? My work presents a landscape where digital aesthetics and craft intersect through physical “pixels,” in the form of diamond painting, digital collages, and more.

The work reflects on the ways digital identities are constructed, consumed, and constantly revised, contrasting the instant gratification of online image culture with the slowness of material making. By materializing pixels into painstakingly assembled surfaces, the work reclaims craft as a site of both resistance and critical inquiry.

Show dog, horses, and rat imagery recurs throughout the work, functioning as both playful metaphor and pointed critique. Like digital personas, show dogs and horses are endlessly trained, and judged for public display which embodies a competition driven culture of performance. In contrast, rats are anxious creatures who scurry around in the dark.

The pieces embraces the layered, contradictory nature of contemporary femininity and opens a dialogue on the performativity of identity in the digital age. Visually and conceptually, the exhibition explores the cluttered, over-consumerized, and perpetually over-performed perception of the self.