These paintings begin as encounters in landscapes, particularly those marked by geological “deep time.” They bear witness to human interventions in the landscape, and to our interactions with the non-human world. Such interventions reify systems of control and speak to notions of access — specifically, who has access to nature. Portions of the picture plane seem to be torn away or excised, revealing flat passages of chromatic grays, blacks, and browns. These interruptions and barriers prevent the viewer from fully entering or navigating the space. Competing visual languages and surfaces reflect our experience of the land we inhabit, our interactions with what is considered "wild," and the varying degrees to which our encounters with nature are mediated. Given the rift between human and non-human worlds, how should we proceed? How might we live well within these disrupted spaces? Part meditation, part metaphor, part elegy, these landscapes explore the anxiety, despair, terror, and joy which characterize our shared precarity.

We interface with the natural world everywhere. I'm interested in the variety of ways in which our experience of nature has been mediated by others — from wilderness preserves to city centers. These paintings reflect ways in which the landscape is an active, living participant in the events of our time, as well as a record of time itself. 

Increasingly, my sketchbook practice informs my finished studio paintings. This influence is sometimes obvious, as when sketches are scaled up and redrawn in finished work. At other times, the studies exert a more basic influence: many recent compositions are more inspired by on-site drawings than they are by my photographs. 

I am currently poised between two modes of thinking and making. Moving away from static source material toward direct observation of the living landscape represents a transformative shift in my practice. Drawing is a form of thinking. A richer exploration of place is possible when this drawing/thinking is undertaken within the landscape itself. Sitting before the world to draw it—listening to insects, noticing light shifts on a leaf, smelling plants baking under the sun or drinking in the rain, growing stiff while perched on a rock—this is a qualitatively different experience to that of working from a photograph. This embodied practice of looking encodes a sense of place in the self and in the drawing, both of which influence the finished painting. 

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These paintings continue to become simpler, quieter, more still, somewhat uneasy, always invested in the changing conditions of light. I am constantly delighted by the banal visual elements of specific life circumstances, which so often become more compelling than one might expect. In this spirit—as ordinary, imperfect materials are momentarily engaged in awkwardly arresting formal relationships—issues of abstraction continue to be present in these paintings. The liminal spaces I’ve chosen to explore here are comprised of patterns, textures, shapes, and shadows that appear to have arranged themselves with care, awaiting the viewer’s notice.

The subject matter in this series derives from encounters with my neighborhood while taking regular meditation walks, during which I observe the world. The paintings become a record of the daily forms with which I live. I've long felt that things become valuable to us as a result of the attention we pay to them; in some way, attention translates into appreciation. Consequently, the following observation by Frederick Franck resonated with me deeply when I came across it recently: "I have learnt that what I have not drawn, I have never really seen, and that when I start to draw an ordinary thing, I realize how extraordinary it is."

In my neighborhood, the border between a commercial storage space or industrial building and residential lot is permeable: side-by-side, these structures don't belong wholly to one world or the other. This work focuses on the awkward spaces that develop as a result. These paintings also depict many literal barriers: walls, fences, oscillated strand board, bridges, industrial doorways. I'm interested in what happens at the interface between public and private, between a space to which we are granted access and a space to which we are not granted access.

Geometry infuses these paintings, and to some extent I envision this geometry as evidence of human endeavor—so often overruled or undermined by the passing of time and the inevitability of subsequent actions and events. Fascinating irregularities of form and inconsistencies of logic thus emerge.

As in previous work, I continue to be drawn to very banal and awkward subject matter—none of these places is special. What interests me is the way in which something becomes special through sustained attention. In these forgettable, unprepossessing details, I find quietude. The quietude that accompanies these empty places and "wrong" bits isn't insecure, fearful, or nostalgic. Rather than an indictment, the acknowledgement of these awkward moments becomes about present-ness and the joy of looking. This quietude is comfortable with awkwardness, appreciative and mindful of the fleeting moment. These paintings aren’t hopeful, nor waiting or longing. While these spaces do wear their history, they don’t ruminate over what was or look forward to the future, but instead murmur “this is what is.”

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An outgrowth of previous examinations of disintegrating architectural models, the focus of this series continues to be on awkward interruptions of what might typically be considered the "right" picture. Each painting represents a single brief moment in which routine artifacts of one’s daily life are illuminated and transformed, activated by the momentary attention. Banal, domestic flaws—features that are typically avoided in the course of self-representation—are here given center stage. These stained, chipped, misaligned, and untidy items are intensely personal, but the paintings aren’t of a confessional nature. Instead, the tableaus explore the delight of discovery as ordinary, imperfect materials are momentarily engaged in awkwardly arresting formal relationships. My interest in the unstable line between abstraction and representation remains a prominent thread in this work.

Each of these images are clearly informed by photography’s ability to “fix” a moment in time and by the logic of selection that accompanies the era of digital manipulation. Nevertheless, these works embrace the language of painting more completely than previous series did. Photography is no longer deployed as a distancing or filtering mechanism, the emphasis on photographic depth of field is eliminated, and the paintings’ surfaces are of a tactile nature. Both the artist’s hand and the viscosity of paint have become more active participants in the work. And while the use of photography and cropping remain central to this process, the character of my photographic sources has changed. No longer "trophies" or souvenirs of the spectacle of power—and tourism—the images and moments are definitively mine, embracing the incidental and insignificant facets of my personal environment.

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"Sites of Power" explores structures in which power, an abstract concept, is embodied or performed. The paintings are based on my photographs of the scale models at Istanbul’s Miniaturk theme park. As imagery is translated from one medium to another, it becomes distorted: the “real” is processed and filtered, creating distance between the viewer and subject.

Painted with a clear reference to their photographic sources, but with severe cropping and awkward point-of-view, the images are reduced to formal composition, pattern and color, remaining only minimally recognizable. These quasi-abstract paintings thus return the reified concept of power to an abstract state, denuding the structures of the power they once wielded.

Further erosion occurs as moments of material imperfection are featured: cracks in plaster, Astroturf that curls up from its substrate, water stains on tarmac. In this way, an element of human frailty and disintegration is apparent in the otherwise idyllic model. The grand structures with which humans proclaim their power, wealth, status, and knowledge are not merely places: their influence and control over human behavior are performative exercises of power. When the building blocks are viewed up close, however, the intimidation upon which this control is based begins to break down.

This series attempts to further dismantle the mythology of such sites by disregarding the actual grand buildings as source material: the paintings instead reference photographs of their scale models. In presenting a miniature facsimile, models tame and disarm the mighty. When these tamed structures are subsequently photographed, they become souvenirs that literally fit in one’s pocket, or in the palm of one’s hand. This reference is significant and, consequently, the paintings preserve photographic details such as shallow depth of field and bokeh produced by the camera lens.

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