Now that my show in Portland is underway and I'm able to refocus my energies elsewhere, I'm hopeful that I can continue keeping my forward momentum. In January I began putting together a series of works that focuses on calligraphic marks which explore the acts of writing and drawing. While I feel that this work will be an important facet to my catalog moving forward, today I revisited some collage work that I had all but put on hold. Collage seems to provide me a vehicle for expression that painting just can't provide and inevitably I'm never too far away from its sway. The found object is apparent in images repurposed from old National Geographic magazines from the 1940s and 1950s. When juxtaposed with nonrepresentational elements the context is easily skewed to ask a new question while providing a level of accessibility into the work. This play with context is perhaps what fascinates me most with using images from the WWII era. Do we, as viewers, recognize these as images from a bygone age, is it even possible not to do so and think of them in strictly contemporary terms? If these elements are of a war time ilk, how does the context of our modernity shape how we view these images? I hope that the questions these compositions raise will be thought provoking and the allow the viewer to ponder their own experience with the work. What more can I ask as an artist?
Her Biggest Job Is War, 2016, Collage on Panel, 14"x14"