In art that is representational, connections automatically form between the onlooker and the composition regarding what is being represented. Any aspect, then, of representational art when obscured or abstracted is assumed to evoke elements of an imagined fiction. Visuals speak different languages, as is true with the diagrammatic imagery of science compared to the expressionism of art.
That, however, does not necessarily mean their languages cannot merge. To a scientist, a graph or a diagram speaks purely of the results of statistics, but to an artist, this imagery creates an opportunity to redefine intended meanings and to employ personal expression—to merge said languages for the sake of a compelling composition.
My work exists in the imaginative, but makes ample reference to the diagrammatic to exploit these scientific elements and to place them into the realm of artistic products. This displacement of context, and its subsequent meshing with the imagination further drive it into the realm of banal and random associations, while still referencing its analytical origins—utilizing tools of the scientifically didactic for the sake of un-didactic artistic expression. In my work, art as a historical institution is played with just as much as science. My paintings are landscapes, a subject that has historically been a central part of the painter’s vernacular.
Through the medium of acrylic paint, along with elements of collage and transfer, my work depicts a collection of ecosystems and abstract landscapes, with much emphasis on the formal relationship between shape and color. A systematic complexity is implied, but is never fully defined. In one composition, a celestial sphere is interacting in straight diagrammatic lines with a man-made white obelisk. The intent of this is to overwhelm and also to obscure, so the onlooker is besieged in a wholly visual form. It is to create a plastic, two-dimensional reproduction of the world—that consolidates nature with that of the technical through paint applied in both expressive brushstrokes and straight edges.
Drawing from the influence of such painters as Max Ernst and László Moholy-Nagy, my work also reflects upon the mechanical fixation of the early Modernists. This is evident through geometrically precise shapes that incorporate themselves in the natural setting. There is also a spattering of industrial architecture that implies the presence of humanity, but retains a desolate feel, as the picture frame is left absent of human figures themselves.
With this work, I am speaking also of the connection between what we perceive and what we know. Just as science perpetually changes and improves upon itself, fact sometimes becomes fiction. My work puts into question what we perceive or what we know as fact or as fiction, based on the context in which we experience it. It begs the viewer to more closely critique why some images demand authority over others based on where they derive.