A person's art should be a reflection of a person's lifestyle. Drawing allows me to be portable, social, clean, and minimal. It allows me to make marks that form a rhythm, that are mentally meditative and feel good coming out of my hand. A pen's preciseness allows me to get into the nooks and crannies of a thought; and ink's permanence forces me to make conscious, confident decisions. My work references the drawings of 18th century naturalists, taking on both a traditional approach to mark making and early natural documentation. This visual aesthetic references the appreciation and curiosity gained from being raised on the banks of the Grand River, where I took detailed, mental notes of wild life, and my own place within it. My drawings are about the nature of systems and my ideas come across more effectively because how I draw is an active part of my own daily system.

Within my work I discuss human's double perception of nature; it is either something to be glorified, or something to be dominated. They relish in it's beauty, in the wild's ability to captivate their senses and entice them with its raw and untouched will. They believe that if humans were eliminated from the earth, the system in place would carry on forever through evolution and symbiosis; nature void of humanity is harmony.  Yet they also express power over nature. Humans surpass nature's slow growth with their advanced tools. They have language, emotion, souls and science; they have choice, and those abilities make them kings.

The problem with this double perception is that people are then both within and simultaneously outside of nature. They cannot see themselves as both part of the system and also destroyers of it, for hypocrisy is culturally unacceptable. Yet in truth, animals make choices, have feelings, laugh and share. They garden, babysit, and mourn their dead. People are discovering that these things they want to declare as being strictly human are also part of glorified nature. The divisions humans hold in their minds are constantly being broken down by science, man's most honest invention. I am interested in this discussion, and creating work that visually portrays animals living within natures systems, but metaphorically shows the similarities in human's day to day existence.

born:1986, Grand Rapids

education:

Grand Valley State University, BFA, 2009

selected awards/honors

Robert and Victoria Youngman Award, Muskegon Museum of Art, 2009
Ox Bow Fellowship, Art Institute of Chicago, 2008
Departmental Award for Art, Grand Valley State University, 2008
Arthur Zankel Scholar, Society of Illustrators, 2007

selected publications

Visual Overture Magazine, Vol. 2. Atlanta, GA: p. 10-11, Spring 2011
Creative Quarterly Magazine, Vol. 5, No. 2. New York, NY: p. 45, Winter 2010
Blanket Magazine, Iss. 18, PDF Magazine: p. 23-24, Fall 2009

selected solo or two-person exhibits

YT Galleria: Nesting, Grand Rapids, MI, 2010
Padnos Gallery: This is Not That, Allendale, MI, 2009
Ox Bow Gallery: Magic Walls, Saugatuck, MI, 2008

selected group shows

Andi Campognone Project: Art for Awareness, Pamona, CA, 2011
Muskegon Museum of Art: Mirror Mirror, Muskegon, MI, 2010
Division Art Gallery: 333, Grand Rapids, MI, 2008