ARTIST STATEMENT

My work is affected by human nature, our culture, and the landscapes of which we are occupants. The phenomenal and ephemeral qualities found in the environment - a gust of wind, the faded billboard, a rusting road sign, the passing of a cloud, a violent storm, the heat of summer, the cracking earth on the dried up belly of a pond, the simple passing of a day - provide a familiar background for my observations.

To quote Lucy Lippard as she so eloquently states in her book, The Lure of the Local*,

"The sense of place, as the phrase suggests, does indeed emerge from the senses. The land, and even the spirit of the place, can be experienced kinetically, or kinesthetically, as well as visually. If one has been raised in a place, its textures and sensations, its smells and sounds, are recalled as they felt to a child’s, adolescent’s, adult’s body. Even if ones history there is short, a place can still be felt as an extension of the body, especially the walking body, passing through and becoming part of the landscape."

Through a series of paintings, videos, photographs, earth and objects of labor, I create installations, hybrid paintings and sculptures that explore the intersections between memory, the body, our emotions and the sensory experiences we share with the natural environment. As these unique forms try to communicate to one another, often lines are blurred; one is not sure where the body ends and the landscape begins; or where the landscape ends and emotions begin. Each seems to pass through the other forming a texturally rich and surreal language, acknowledging changing places, confronting a sense of loss, exploring human will and providing a source to contemplate its poetry.



*The Lure of the Local: Senses of place in a multicentered society, by Lucy R. Lippard, The New Press, New York, 1997.