Artist Statement

Employing alternative methods, I look to challenge the boundaries of traditional art practices and mediums, specifically those related to the act of drawing. In reinterpreting printmaking processes, I’m pouring and pulling printer’s ink across a smooth paper surface with a large metal rule. Recurring images connote hybrid specimens of plant life, insects or bodily viscera. Other drawings appear archaeological - excavated bone fragments come to mind. These varied allusions play between the extremes of the living and the dead, the animate and the reliquary. Polarity is echoed in the strong visual contrasts between black and white, transparency and opacity. Drawn simultaneously from both nature and process, the intermediary space that these polarities co-inhabit is a domain that I’m actively investigating. In order to further explore this middle-realm, I photo-capture and digitally invert the images so as to collect and catalog a “verso” of the completed drawings.

Naming is significant in my messaging system. I often choose compound words or phrases comprised of both verb and noun, linking drawing to an action and the resulting image to an object or “bi-product” of the primary action. Extracting from the vernacular of science, I denote classifications after the phrase to underscore biologic references and to subvert the laden emotions implied in the initial catchword. This dual-coded message, including the visual/verbal exchange between image and text, create undercurrents of meaning that inscribe more complex textual experiences. The direct relationship between text, image and viewer is then emphasized.