lili white

Artist Statement

After being caught around 2025’s Los Angeles wildfires disaster, the elements in my pastels feature a bird with extended wings like a phoenix. It tends to environments whose elements are inherently found in the archetype of the apocalypse and garden of renewal. My new "landscape-portraits" are a window onto historic record and a metaphorical site of transformation that incorporate LA's terrain, its places and fragments dreamt up by its film industry, made in a sort of liminal s/place.
I contrast the whimsical Wizard of Oz, specifically, the ruby slippers preserved in an LA museum—with the visceral reality of fire that destroyed life and lives.
The tension between the desire for “home” and the fragility of physical land creates a narrative that advocates for the protection of our shared environment and humanity. Ultimately, I document a world in flux, searching to find a path toward preservation within the ashes of transformation.
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My collaged, mixed media targets on silhouetted life-size figure, and their subsequent limited edition prints, derive from society's concerns. They present surreal states of actuality reflecting the collective. They are intended to act as catalysts for discussion as opposed to suggesting violence.
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My films are dreamy impressions are based in the personal and collective dreams. They draw from human projections visualized in humanity's mental imagery and belong to the complex movements of spirit that remain in flux as ongoing dynamisms of evolutionary change. My process uses rhythm, aesthetics, and storytelling to delineate an intuitive feeling-meaning that bring attention to aspects of the subjects investigated, that often center on themes of power and repression.
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