Statement

My studio practice centers on non-traditional mark-making that results from processes of time and chemical transformation. Fragile systems, natural processes, and reactions (sometimes chemical) have been reoccurring elements within my studio practice over the last 20 years. 

The materials I employed been chosen because they possess inherent meaning and significance: they speak to organic elements and construction materials, which can be simultaneously beautiful and transformative. My work explores the connection between science and art; each work is the outcome of an ongoing experiment. My artistic intent is to allow for a loss of control by engaging materials that have a voice of their own, thus ensues an interesting visual conversation.

My recent body of work is a collaboration with living honey bees and employs aspects of printmaking, photography, painting and drawing to create works on paper using the cyanotype process.  

As honeybees arrive to the image they become an unpredictable part of the process and I adjust and adapt to try and control their movement on the image surface—to some extent “organizing chaos.” Honeybees are in no way harmed by this project. They come and go freely without any contact with exposure to process or chemicals. 

As the cyanotype develops in sunlight the trace of the bees’ movements appears as an atmospheric abstraction punctuated by “little ghosts”, their individual forms translated into soft glowing orbs. The bees represent the majority of the white areas within these works. I am left with ephemeral images, a recording of something both fragile and vital.

My artwork is a visual commentary on humanity’s constant cycle of creation and destruction.  The images I create are caught in a state of flux, simultaneously building up and breaking down. Memories of being a child and walking around on my father’s construction sites deeply influenced my concepts of building and destroying. Years later these ideas have led to a focus on the “worker bees”—their fragile way of life has so much in common with our own.