Cityscape 01.2021.003, NFS
Artist Statement
Come close.
Inspired by the awe, alienation and also sense of home that both natural and built environments can evoke, I invent abstract, layered landscapes and cityscapes using found images on watercolor paper. The most abstract are moodscapes: colors, textures and shapes arranged to create an environment of feeling rather than physical place.
These collages are meant to invite viewers to step out of their everyday surroundings and to consider and inhabit other realms, from dreamy to unsettling. Together, these works explore concepts of balance/imbalance, figure/ground, beauty/unsightliness, grandeur/intimacy and stillness/motion, as well as the sedimentary nature of human experience.
At its most fundamental, each piece is a response to the question: What belongs where?
Some begin with a single compelling image, around which I methodically construct a composition from reams of collected materials organized into file folders by category. Many pieces evolve more experimentally, with elements swapped in and out, over and over, until an answer emerges from amidst the mess: “These elements belong together. These make a place.”
I hope you’re intrigued enough to look closely, to interrogate and appreciate what “place” means to you, to ask: What is this place, and what is here for me? In collage, the whole is, ideally, greater than the sum of its parts. This body of work aims to turn slips of paper into portals through which you might access another place or time.
> See moodscapes (coming soon)
