ARTIST' STATEMENT

Coming from the tradition of site specific landscape painting my practice in the past 20 years has gradually moved toward installation. My latest projects have been done on lexan (a transparent film). These works incorporate drawing, painting and printing. Done from an aerial perspective I see them as maps of land use.
     
Paint and mixed media are intertwined and layered. The surface is further enhanced by incorporating patterns in the frottage of found grid materials such as chain link fences, chicken wire, steel grates and grids. This mimics man made hieroglyphics and grids imposed on nature’s chaos. The lexan pieces can also be seen backlit in aluminum light boxes. The boxes have audience activated motion detectors. This enables the viewer to participate in the impermanent phenomena of how light affects what one sees.
     
In my new work the large lexan pieces can be adhered to Plexiglas (archival) and suspended 2 inches from the wall. In this way light changes with the surroundings so in a natural way the works seem to be illuminated from within. Some of the larger ones are cut up and re ordered to form grids that are attached 2 inches from the wall. The walls are activated with illumination and shadows. Lately I am working on larger lexan 48 x 48 inches that I would like to develop into a large size wall grid.

I work on themes in series. Lately a series of 18 lexan pieces “Elemental” considering the theme of the original 4 elements: Earth Air Water and Fire was installed in the Cardinal Collins Composite High School (a juried public art commission). I am concerned also with the impact of man on the earth and the impact of land use. I am considering a series contrasting floods and droughts. Also a series on ice melting of glaciers and the artic. Many of these themes are concerned with how human expansion, use and over use of resources, land, and water, has affected the future.