SHAPE SYSTEM
These abstract paintings use broken patterns to depict land, as well as to reflect on what is lost when we re-shape land into new places.
I paint to navigate new understandings of land and place. On Earth, land is inseparable from life that inhabits it. From the fossil record, to soil teeming with biota, to a weedy concrete corner, land is not a neutral ground where I simply find myself standing. It is a complex heritage of evolution, ecology, and physical forces. An essential part of my process is researching the climatic, biological, and geophysical processes that shape the land.
"Place" is a conception of land that has been expanded and abstracted by culture, imagination, or memory. Whereas the horizon is an organizing principle in traditional landscapes, here I use "presence" and its interlocking relationship with "absence" to organize space. Painted areas of dense, obsessively proliferating patterns evoke ideas of bounty, direct experience and mindful focus. These painted sections exist in relationship with blank spaces that, through stark contrast, suggest extinction, loss or gaps in the record, or forgetting.
Gouache on paper, 5" X 5.5", 2013-ongoing
"Place" is a conception of land that has been expanded and abstracted by culture, imagination, or memory. Whereas the horizon is an organizing principle in traditional landscapes, here I use "presence" and its interlocking relationship with "absence" to organize space. Painted areas of dense, obsessively proliferating patterns evoke ideas of bounty, direct experience and mindful focus. These painted sections exist in relationship with blank spaces that, through stark contrast, suggest extinction, loss or gaps in the record, or forgetting.
Gouache on paper, 5" X 5.5", 2013-ongoing