My Form Series explores the associative power of natural forms. By the alteration of scale, placement and context, the forms that are explored lose their concrete cognitive associations. The resulting images become indeterminate signifiers that the viewer may readily associate with a multitude of objects and readings, resulting from their own experiences, and personal narratives. Through simultaneous recognitions patterns emerge; natural form begetting associations of other universal possibilities.
This body of work represents natural objects that have been chosen and attended to for their particular yet unremarkable quality, objects that at first may seem at the least uninteresting, or homely. These objects have been located in a myriad of the indiscernible: found on the forest floor, nestled in the underbrush, or hidden within a field. I have taken from these moments of decay and destitution, a piece, a part, a pittance, a pit, a pod, a seed, a nut, these seemingly insignificant natural entities often evading interest, and attention, yet are holding both in sign and function the alchemy of life.
born: 1978, Pittsfield, MA
education:
Syracuse University, MFA, 2005
University of Massachusetts, Amhesrt, BFA, 2001
selected
solo or two-person exhibits
Form Series, The Gallery at Stevenson Union, Southern Oregon University, Ashland, OR, 2008
Jessica Thornton and Nathan Sullivan, George Caleb Bingham Gallery, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO, 2008
selected
group shows
11th Annual Young Painters Competition for the William and Dorothy Yeck Award, Hiestand Galleries, Miami University, Oxford, OH, 2010
Contemporary Realism Biennal, Fort Wayne Museum of Art, Fort Wayne, IN, 2010
Paint, Manifest Gallery, Cincinnati, OH, 2001
Contemporary Painting, Ford Gallery, Eastern Michigan University, Ypsilanti, MI, 2009