in 2000, i felt as if my work of the past 10 years, particularly with painting, was moving too much towards a recognizable visual language, particularly in my use of visible letters and fragmented text; so i decided to attempt to work a bit differently, and to dig deeper into the ways in which language could participate in the making of the work, rather than appearing visibly on its surface.
i began with a small group of paintings that would not have any visual reference to words or letters, using instead, a map as a visual template. i also began a long-term sculptural project related to a map of the moon, a set of drawings related to a text by hermann hesse, and a series of 26 sculptural objects related to the alphabet, my voice, and my beginnings of using a computer for my soundwork.
all of these works were the beginnings of a kind of shedding, as if forcing a snake to lose its skin – to see what might be revealed by its absence. i wanted the work to be less refined and more exploratory – hoping for more “trust” between myself and the work, and attempting to move away from expectations and destinations already known.
