I am interested in the systems people create in order to organize what they perceive in the world around them. These systems can be based in science, religion, psychology, philosophy, or politics. No matter how cerebral a system or idea may appear it is always experienced through our physical senses. To communicate balance between reason and the senses I paint imagery of the body expressing emotional understanding juxtaposed with systems of verbal and/or mathematical language.
In my work, Social Agreements, I laser cut watercolor and ink paintings, transforming the paper into an object made out of words. By using two strongly contrasting techniques, handmade and machine made, the physical work reinforces the conceptual idea that sensory/emotive understanding is fundamentally connected with analytical logic. The final art pieces are objective and intuitive, mechanical and intimate. Whether the viewer chooses to focus on the "rationality" in the text, or the "sensory" in the bodies each remains equally significant within the physical object itself.
In Moments of Contact, relationships are depicted within a circular motif. The fragmentation of each moment lends ambiguity to both the pictorial space and to the boundary between the people portrayed. Typically, the work appears to be a unit that references objectivity and systemization via mathematical or scientific observation. When viewing the work at close range the system collapses, engaging the viewer intimately and personally. Due to the physical constraints of our being we are unable to interact with the work from both perspectives in the same time and space. My work makes this condition apparent, echoing our inherent struggle to simultaneously understand relationships from both the subjective and objective, the ordered and the chaotic.