Artist Statement
Meaning is not absolute. I am not partial to any ideology concerning hierarchical meaning. Meaning is contingent upon context. The context of my work is developed through the materials used, a visual grammar of familiar forms, and an exploration of physical, atmospheric, and illusionistic space. I'm interested in employing an accessible vocabulary, one in which the viewer can enter freely. Ubiquitous materials are transformed into a two dimensional picture, or unnaturally cover the surface of a familiar object. These subtle juxtapositions function within the realm of the personal, offering an opportunity for self-reflection.
The work is involved in a dialogue with painting, drawing, and sculpture by employing its vocabulary, referencing its histories, and challenging its traditions. The subject matter (that materializes both as images, objects, and textures) ranges from snowy mountain tops, Christmas trees, flying birds, notebook pages, chairs, parking lots, fences, plywood, and marble. Each of these holds their own various references and histories. The theme of each work comes from the interaction of these subjects together within a frame. I hope that the work will sabotage customary associations with these subjects, and provide opportunity for an enhanced personal experience. Each piece creates its own lense through which it is seen. An expectation is constructed, then disappointed, or enriched, or undermined, creating a sense of its own precarious mortality.
I hope to evoke several questions. What exactly IS the subject? What is this space? Where am I? How does it work? The faux-architecture frames a misplaced Pine, the marble parking-lot hosts a flock of barely visible birds, the obstructive abstract shape that dominates the picture is called a bridge, but connects nothing to nothing save the edges of the frame.
The aim of my work is to threaten our conditioned psychological restrictions, and suggest (if only momentarily) a perceptual freedom; an existential Big Rock Candy Mountain.