Bird-Like Things and Things Like Trees
With Bird–Like Things in Things Like Trees, my interest lies in fabricating
immediate yet elusive objects. These slippery icons originated from attempts to construct unfamiliar birds and beings based on interpreted, interrupted, or fleeting encounters while in a seemingly familiar yet foreign place. That intent was entangled, energized, and distracted by the excitement and expectation of significant change.
The work embraces the ideas of suspension, fecundity, and recollection through material, conceptual, and stylistic concerns. Imagery hovers between the representational and abstract while resting in the uncanny. The origin of each piece hides in plain sight, pausing briefly along the evolution and migration of actual facts through romanticized recollection. The paintings and drawings employ an ambiguous ground through the removal of spatial context and by layering transparent, reflective, and repeated elements from early ink studies. Smoke, inks, mediums and pigments involving the suspension of particles seem to hover above the paper surface and translucent polyester grounds stretched on sculptural formats.
Deliberately conditional, the work is dependent on projected and reflected light. On panel pieces, direct light illuminates sides or splits creating a bounce of pinkish orange light. With the polyester canvases, light initially passes through the ink and reflects off the under layer of mirrored mylar, creating patterns and echoes of the ink image on the polyester surface. As the viewer passes, layers compress or pull apart or hover while the reflected light image appears or disappears. The translucent mirrored glass horns accept and reflect the surrounding environment while projecting sound and images through concealed speakers and pico projectors embedded within.
