MIDDLE WEST

This work concentrates more on the relationship between the organic and the mechanical on both a personal and universal level. This is conveyed through my artistic process by contrasting the uncontrolled manner of throwing paint on a surface with the precise movements of drafting. My imagery speaks to this by vacillating between the natural, such as the body, cloud cover and foliage, and the structural, such as architecture, overpasses and utility poles.  The majority of the images come from traveling between small rural towns and large cities in the Midwest. This visual vocabulary reflects the present day concerns that have been voiced by authors such as Wendell Berry. He states that our current societal struggle is one between the organic and the mechanical. This, he says, can be seen in the sacrificing of the rural landscape, agriculture and household for the sake of industry. 

The work is proclaiming the ordinary as extraordinary. This is demonstrated through the representations of the everyday, such as the interior of the home or people on their daily commute.  The work is articulating the idea that common events, like moving from point A to point B or eating a meal, are where we are making choices for a larger collective. However small these choices may seem, they cause us to ask complex questions. For example, "Do we support a local or global economy? Do we centralize our food systems or diversify them? Do we sacrifice the sacred act of living for the convenience of the industrial?

My work is created with the hope that it would stimulate a conversation about the sanctity of knowing one's neighbor, the importance of locality and the elevation of the commonplace to theremarkable.