statement

In this recent series of experimental drawings, I have been collecting, generating, and manipulating data to generate imagery with varying degrees of ambiguity and specificity. Of course, as all artistic practices involve degrees of illusion and abstraction, I have been curious about the degree to which layering these delicate lines formed by a single ballpoint pen ultimately reveal the depths of landscape, architectural space, and figuration.

Generally speaking, I'm concerned about what Walter Benjamin described as the 'aura' of the object and the fact that with mechanical reproduction, this aura diminishes.  Though Benjamin was likely arguing in favor of this democratization of images and objects, I personally lament the loss of this aura in visual art.  At the same time, I enjoy the potential of digital media, and understand that much of our workflow, like it or not, has been converted to these systems.  What seems to be lacking in the binary perfection of digital media is the authentic, and organic error that comes out of the limitations (or potentials) of the human body (dexterity) and the wonderful tyranny of physics.  A splash, a spill, or a drip, in the digital realm lack authenticity and, as such, become artifice or decoration.  I mix photographic media with hand-drawn elements and processes to reveal the process (even with its flaws) and to juxtapose the specific (photographic) with the ambiguous (drawing).  Ultimately, rather than telling specific stories, I'm interested in what narrative can emerge from reflecting on a given image or object.

bio

born: 1968, San Francisco, California

education

University of Washington, Seattle, MFA 2002
Humboldt State University, BA 2000

selected publications

Digital Art Revolution by Scott Ligon, Random House, Inc. Watson-Guptill Publishers
Recent Drawings, Gallery 114, Portland, OR, 2011

selected solo or two-person exhibits

On the Cartographic Sublime, ForntierSpace, Missoula, MT, 2012

selected group shows

Across The Divide IV, The Center on Contemporary Art (COCA), Seattle, 2012
Post-rural, Visual Arts Gallery, The University of Wyoming, Laramie, WY, 2013
Post-rural, Fine Arts Gallery, The College of Southern Nevada, Las Vegas, NV