My artistic practice is hybrid and conceptual, extending across traditional media boundaries. Whether my work takes the form of hand-embroidered canvases presenting words on linen, scripted narrative video, conceptual text-based images, illustrated maps, artist books or critical essays about other artists, it all relates conceptually to the intersections between art and language, image and text, humans and the surrounding landscape. Holding it altogether is my focus on two things: the sheer physical presence of words perceived in various contexts and the ability of language to suggest and sustain conceptual ideas within those contexts. Whatever form it takes, my work examines the power of language to shape a person’s worldview, the way we map our perception of the world around us by the language we attribute it, and the role that language plays in establishing the social and natural environments we make for ourselves.
In each project, I use a close examination of specific events to generate philosophical discussions about meaning. What if the sun defied expectation and never set (Endless Day)? What if loved ones in books could come to life (Talking Book)? What if we were asked to defend our own skepticism (Ad Infinitum)? What if our language took on physical weight and form (Because snow never melts on Antarctica)? How does language shape our embodied experience (Hot Air, Sincerely; Definitions; Desert Maps)? How can generic, cliché language be individuated (Time and Time Again)? What is the relationship between conception and perception (Beneath the surface (of language), Silver Island Mountain Byway, Wendover, Utah, USA)? Can we map what is knowable in the world (Searching for Ludwig Wittgenstein, Lake Eidsvatnet, Skjolden, Sogn, Norway)? The questions of how we know what we know, what informs our decisions, how images express ideas and feelings, and the way the problem of language relates to all of this, come up repeatedly throughout my work.