Artist Statement
Behind bookshelves, under each potted plant, just beneath the surface of the water, and underneath perfectly stacked rocks, is a collectible— it’s more fun to imagine it that way at least. This playful searching guides my work.
When I take a photograph it is a step into creating a collection of photographs. Photographs do a lot, but I feel they need to do more. I collect and take images on camping trips, holidays, slow Saturday mornings, or while waiting for the laundry. To best use these collections, I frequently take them apart, clone, draw, mark, embed, and layer individual images with one another to create a heavily retextured impression of space. This better defines how a place is imbued with endless experiential sediment.
Experiences grow increasingly simultaneous as we become more aware of ourselves, our surroundings, and what happens across the globe via virtual exchange. There is never just a thing happening, all the things are happening, and it’s seen by everyone who has a spare moment to turn their eyes toward it. Whether participation is active or passive (sharing or watching), we connect with one another in digital spaces to convey our memories of physical places. This makes digital collage a fundamental process for my image collections. The labor used to collage reveals evidence rather than covering up the detritus of working with digital images.
The amount of labor depends on the simultaneity of the place or moment. Heavily traveled places like national parks, trails, and public spaces show a great level of perspectives, range, and interchange. Areas of my home however imply domestic actions and the presence of my family. The collecting and assembling reveals identities in space and places as multiple layers of my ‘self’, your ‘self’, and our ‘self’.
