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Artist Statement
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My creative practice and research investigates landscape, seen through the lens of personal experience and narrative, as a means to consider human/nature relationships. My artwork focuses on places in states of transition, interpreting my findings through layers of imagery built up into dreamlike scenes. Using first person experience to develop content, I consider intersections of culture and geography. Researching ecological and historic aspects of a place strengthens the visual documentation. Intermixing this variety of imagery and information provides a way to create discordant and lyrical depictions of relationships between the natural and man-made worlds.
The aesthetic of my work is based on rendering objects through direct observation and from memory, and this comes from my training as an illustrator. By layering and juxtaposing content, I aim to create a visualization of complex relationships and dense histories. Through drawing, printmaking and digital techniques, I build layers of information as a way to encourage connections among disparate images and also to evoke a sense of memory and history. Real-world imagery and information resonate metaphorically, creating a space for the imagination. My projects range in subject matter, from creating invented landscapes based on observations of scenic tourist sites to an interdisciplinary research-creation project reflecting on the effects of dams on the Columbia River. In my imagery, the landscapes depicted are uninhabited; however the evidence of human intervention and presence of memory are left behind like ghostly reminders throughout the scenes. I aim to convey a poetic and critical view of our world developing, freely combining space, imagery and information to explore observations of change and effects of development. Through these various projects, I have learned how drawn forms can imply parallels among various places and histories, suggest patterns and relationships, and facilitate documentary, allegory and envisioned futures. |