For several years I have worked mainly in the medium of photography, producing large tableau photographs in the manner made popular by Jeff Wall and the Bernd and Hilla Becher school of photographers. The works I made were constructed studio photographs produced with a view camera and were reliant upon metaphor and art historical references applied to contemporary social situations.
Currently my practice is in transition. In the past two years I began to experiment with different media, including drawing, diagrams, painting, and artist’s books, to produce works related to the photographic work. I have started to explore constructing objects and spaces and using images, such as pine trees, laden with symbolic references. Certain elements of my practice remain intact, such as the use of metaphor, working in multiples, and using theatrical lighting. I am interested in the correspondence of materials and the concepts and language they invoke, such as using pine plywood to create boxes for dioramas of pine forests, juxtaposed with photographs of forests.
Minimalism and post-minimalism have been influential in my new work through taking the viewer’s bodily experience of the objects as the basis for creating the installation space and for engaging with a sense of theatricality. For example, in Translation (One) the viewer must walk around the work to view each box; at each possible viewpoint the work faces the viewer, displayed as three little theaters joined physically around a center of light and illusorily through the mise en abyme of mirrors. My goal is to join my investigation of materials with an exploration of the gallery as a space for metaphor, myth, and dream images.
Currently my practice is in transition. In the past two years I began to experiment with different media, including drawing, diagrams, painting, and artist’s books, to produce works related to the photographic work. I have started to explore constructing objects and spaces and using images, such as pine trees, laden with symbolic references. Certain elements of my practice remain intact, such as the use of metaphor, working in multiples, and using theatrical lighting. I am interested in the correspondence of materials and the concepts and language they invoke, such as using pine plywood to create boxes for dioramas of pine forests, juxtaposed with photographs of forests.
Minimalism and post-minimalism have been influential in my new work through taking the viewer’s bodily experience of the objects as the basis for creating the installation space and for engaging with a sense of theatricality. For example, in Translation (One) the viewer must walk around the work to view each box; at each possible viewpoint the work faces the viewer, displayed as three little theaters joined physically around a center of light and illusorily through the mise en abyme of mirrors. My goal is to join my investigation of materials with an exploration of the gallery as a space for metaphor, myth, and dream images.
