place
My art practice is influenced by a deeply felt sense of place. As humans, our identities are entwined with our perceptions of where we belong. In addition to providing the basic materials we need to survive, the places we know and visit—even if only through the imagination—nurture our psyches. They give rise to our languages, our histories, our civilizations. In turn, we sculpt and change and rearrange them to better suit our needs and to more clearly represent our ideals. They make us who we are even as we make them what they are.
process
My work straddles many boundaries, those that lie between word and image, between documentation and invention, between the collective experience of history and the emotionally nuanced perception of memory. Certain pieces also contain elements of fantasy, humor, or aspects of the process required to realize them. On one level I seek to convey fundamentals—words, colors, textures, topographical contours . . . each of these fragments being carefully curated, researched, and expressed using a variety of media. Then, through the layering of text, image, and form, multiple pages may accumulate like layers of earth, or sequential images may unfold as fleeting glimpses of a larger whole.
wayfinding
Over the years, I’ve developed an iconography of symbols to connote my own artistic quest. Chief among these figures is a star with nine points. The idea of the star alludes to the celestial bodies that have marked the passing of time and guided sailors and traders across vast distances. The symbol itself is reminiscent of the compass rose drawn on paper maps. And yet, the addition of a ninth point suggests a different kind of journey—one in search of an internal destination that cannot be triangulated through cardinal directions alone.
