Juxtaposing disparate parts,
I develop a personal sense of place in the world, informed by history, nature,
and cultures.The goals of my
practice are to challenge commonplace assumptions, and celebrate the phenomena
of perception.I am drawn to
certain cultural materials with an urge to intervene, in order to hack, remix,
or reverse-colonize mass mediums.A tendency toward experimentation and my attention to systems lead me to
work across new and old media using the sensibilities of collage.
My interest in history
coincides with a practice of fusing pre-electronic visual technologies with
digital imaging and video.In
doing so, I apply the optical wonder of stereoscopes, zoetropes, and
kaleidoscopes to contemporary themes, often providing viewers with an
interactive experience.In some
pieces, I seek to elevate individual participation to an ecstatic immersive
experience.In others, such
hybridization offers me the opportunity to reconfigure historical contexts
within illusory spaces, in order to challenge cultural memory and perception.
To make the
“Stereocollision” series I digitally mixed images and text appropriated from
antique stereographs to present composite scenes of globalization and
power.The installation invites
viewers into early 20th Century parlor setting to read the cards and
enjoy their 3D imagery, giving a point of view within troubled Western luxury
and dominance.Tourists observe
worshippers, monkeys hold council in a government hall, and soldiers guard a
crowded market place.In
evaluating these places, one is confronted with subtly disorienting hybrids,
which may seem almost plausible at first glance within the modern phenomena of
accelerated global transit and cross-cultural influence.
“Buzzard Hill: Summer Solstice on Ballard Fields
Ranch”, is one of several personal investigations of geography in which I
assemble a montage of individual snap-shots to expand notions of photographic
time and space.By starting on the
sun and extending this method out to the entire sphere of my view, the work
connects the cycle of the year and the circle of the sky to the details of the
immediate landscape and my body.The locations I choose for this series are sites of steady personal
significance from which I assemble my view of the world.
Crossing
these various disciplines, I work to orient myself within time, geography, and
culture.By weaving fact and
fiction, documentary and artifice, I explore recurrent social and existential
themes.