Community Portraits
My work is centered on two distinct themes: the natural world, with its landscapes and organic forms, and human identity, particularly through community engagement via my traveling pop-up studio.
Being unable to find a point of convergence between these two bodies of work, I've largely kept them apart. That changed when I compared the artist's statements I'd written for each and realized that both were about making connections—one with people and the other with nature.
Specifically, in my landscape art, I strive to break through the subject-object sense of separation I feel from the natural world so that I can experience being part of nature rather than merely in it.
It's ironic that I have kept my work with people and my work with nature separate and isolated from each other, doing exactly the opposite of what I advocate for and aspire to in life and art.
Still somewhat irreconcilable on a visual level, my difficulties serve as a metaphor for the difficulties in making and holding connections between humanity and nature.
These words and ideas, hurriedly written, will surely change as I continue to work through this process of reconciliation. But here, early in 2024, it feels like a breakthrough. My message and my feelings remain the same, and I'm excited to see what changes this shift in understanding brings.
Being unable to find a point of convergence between these two bodies of work, I've largely kept them apart. That changed when I compared the artist's statements I'd written for each and realized that both were about making connections—one with people and the other with nature.
Specifically, in my landscape art, I strive to break through the subject-object sense of separation I feel from the natural world so that I can experience being part of nature rather than merely in it.
It's ironic that I have kept my work with people and my work with nature separate and isolated from each other, doing exactly the opposite of what I advocate for and aspire to in life and art.
Still somewhat irreconcilable on a visual level, my difficulties serve as a metaphor for the difficulties in making and holding connections between humanity and nature.
These words and ideas, hurriedly written, will surely change as I continue to work through this process of reconciliation. But here, early in 2024, it feels like a breakthrough. My message and my feelings remain the same, and I'm excited to see what changes this shift in understanding brings.
