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Artist Statement

This work has evolved from the combining of three projects. The first was a photography project. I was tired of photographing scenic landscapes but still wanted to spend time in nature and capture what I saw and felt. I began intentionally blurring images of mundane landscapes and found that the images still evoked a natural landscape without anything specific being discernible. The blurring also altered what was prominent in the image; features could all become a single blur while a small white post would suddenly standout as a large stripe across the image.

The second was an interest in mapping a backpacking trip through Glacier National Park. Throughout the trip, I would sketch areas that I found interesting: the trail’s relationship to the changing landscape, how fallen trees interrupted what would have otherwise been contiguous, and the layering of textural scale from ground up.

The third project was trying to visually depict movement in time. Simultaneously, I was rebuilding a ’96 Toyota Landcruiser carburetor and comprehending how to depict a crowd over time. This is where the circular motif originated. With the carburetor I was fascinated by the variously sized tubes, values, machined metal components, all circular, that even when still were dynamic. To understand crowds, I represented people with red dots and created compositions by clustering or dispersing the dots in relation to solid objects. These merged into the circle motif that is prevalent in my work.

In the process of creating this work, the pieces have become increasing complex and layered. The grid and circle layers have all decreased in scale since the earliest pieces in this series to become less like individual objects and more of a synchronous pattern. An important moment to me was the introduction of paper hole punches as a layer in the composition. This added graphic and physical texture to the pieces while providing an element of unpredictability within the otherwise structured system of the composition.

As an architect I see things as part of a system, but I also find myself fighting back against the receptiveness that systems can create. Much of our world is organized on grids. Grids from urban planning, to structural layouts, to the modularity of components; as well as the grid of societal expectations. Each of my pieces starts with a grid, usually a 1/2” grid in red mechanical colored pencil, very architectural… One or more layers of stenciled ink circles in 3/8” and/or 7/8” diameters provide a pattern that can be painted in subsequent layers. Each piece has a compositional inspiration that informs lines and shapes that are drawn over the grids; these will inform the layers that follow.

Using various diameter paper cutters, I make circles from magazine pages and found paper. These circles are organized within the system but are varied to respond to the forms that emerge in the composition. The existing print of the pages—or by painting the pages for color and texture—adds an amount of uncontrollability to the process. Often there are mistakes in the layers, anomalies that challenge the could-be digital nature of the patterned layers.

The final layers vary the most from piece to piece. It is a challenging shift to transition from the ordered system of the grid and pattern to add expressive elements to the composition. In the final layers I utilize found objects as stamps, create masks to splatter shapes, and draw over previous layers with ink, paint, or pastel. There is a delicate balance between concealment and chaos. My work is a visual exploration of complex intersections.