• paintings, 1996 – 1999

    after working on my own for roughly 5 years out of grad school, my work began to evolve in both materials use and visual languages. much of my work was inspired by texts – and thus, letters were a large aspect of my visual language. i was interested in how the letters could form readable words, but also to be able to exist in a less decipherable situation – i.e. as visual elements of abstraction… at the same time i was looking at a lot of visual communication material – maps, diagrams, instruction sheets, and other bits of graphic design. in both cases, the use of words and diagrams offered me to a way of building images through known language, yet subverting the meanings of those languages – a sort of emptying them out, and then putting them back together in different ways so that their original intentions were subverted enough so that a reader/viewer would be able to create their own meaning, rather than simply deciphering a puzzle. these paintings had no set conclusion or end point, and while there were clear references to language, the paintings stubbornly would not resolve clearly. most importantly i wanted the paintings to feel open ended, so that a viewer could create meaning by engaging with the parts, allowing the viewer to create their own conclusions or end points.

  • anatomy of touch

  • sanctuary (rorschach)

    1997
    39" x 48"
    oil paint, wax, polyurethane
    canvas, wood

  • poem

    1996
    oil and beeswax
    on canvas
    48" x 24"

  • amid this realm of fields…

    1996
    5' x 5'
    oil on canvas
    wood and
    flattened aluminum cans
    polyurethane