ARTIST STATEMENT
| My work examines the complexities and correlations of our environment, natural phenomena, and physical forces. It articulates allegorical relationships between some of the most significant contentions of our time: humans and nature, strength and fragility, crisis and hope. Painting is an emotional medium to me: I conceptualize rationality and make the analytical approachable by transcending science’s inherent sobriety into emotion and poetry. Through a process involving a range of different materials and techniques centered on painting as a primary medium, I often begin with raw canvases that are layered with pieces of paper and other material fragments, employing brushwork and collage methods to apply materials like graphite or soot, generating a source of energy and suspense through color and contrast. My practice is based upon my appreciation for nature, along with a sense of wonder I experienced in museums and libraries when observing scientific sources and samples. Additionally, international residencies have afforded the opportunity to experience extraordinary natural phenomena. Influenced by these experiences, I feel like a researcher and perceive my studio as a laboratory. By examining facets of nature through a ecologic-scientific lens, I aim to understand nature and its workings, and to reproduce these events in a sensual and poetic way, pointing out their incredible might while underscoring its increasing fragility. |