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. |