Locate
Like many people, I’ve often considered how past experiences have influenced my current identity (and how current experiences will influence my future self). These memories do not exist solely on their own; they are persistently entwined with the physical places where they occurred. My art evokes multiple locations simultaneously as a way to visualize the impact and accumulation of these experiences.
I created this body of work by combining outlines and architectural fragments from significant places in my life: floorplans, city boundaries, and abstracted interior and exterior views. After making an initial arrangement of shapes, I then intuitively modified and layered additional imagery. The final outcome of each piece was not pre-determined; instead, it was formed by repeating this process again and again– gradually collecting distinct locations into a complex image. Earlier pieces in the series tend toward a harmony of colors and shapes; these paintings possess a shallow sense of depth, and the layers flatten and coalesce into one object. An interest in spatial distinctness characterizes the later paintings. In these, I used dissonant perspectives and colors to separate each layer from one another and to suggest greater space within the composition.
Making these images is a way for me to discover and express the complexity of personal development. Many of the formal qualities of these accumulated places echo mental or emotional states of being. Elements of revision, harmony, dissonance, and space become meditations on the process of navigating one’s identity.