I have a diverse creative practice which draws in equal parts from my academic studies in evolutionary biology, traditional crafts, and conceptual art as well as from a life and career rich in collaborative synergy. While an undergrad at Dartmouth College, I tracked song birds from the forests of upstate New Hampshire to tropical Jamaica for the renowned ornithologist Richard Homes.
My art making often mirrors that chaotic yet scientific process and endeavors to better understand human nature through our clumsy, if well intentioned, interactions with our ever-evolving environment. I express myself in a wide range of fabricated objects, media and experiences that increasingly are coalescing into hyper sensory installations.
I have taught and exhibited the fruits of this approach at numerous universities and venues in the US and abroad in Germany, Turkey, Denmark, Japan, Belgium, Poland and Australia.
I am currently the Artistic Director of Pilchuck Glass School
Artist Statement
My work is grounded in the starkly dystopic reality of the Colonialpocene yet presents its audience with a playfully immersive aesthetic that aims to ask more questions than it answers. I operate in awe of the beauty and complexity of interlocking networks that envelop us on a daily basis. I travel along the tendrils of these biological and cultural interrelationships to unearth their expressive or metaphoric potentials. By isolating evocative interactions, I magnify the awkwardness with which well-intentioned humans entangle themselves in our poorly understood environments. Intellectual triggers can range from the physics of a sneeze to the psychological schism between man and beast. A rotating cast of characters and icons migrate through my work, inserting both narrative threads to nowhere and much needed comedic breaks. Regardless of the subject matter, my process begins with research that meanders into all spheres of knowledge, from scientific data to popular myth. I follow links both obvious and absurd across various fields of study and beyond their logical limits to guide my viewer towards moments of wonder. Early concept explorations take the form of drawing or collaged mixed media imagery, much of which later becomes encapsulated in sculpture and four-dimensional visual/sonic installations. When seduced by a sexy line of inquiry, I selectively conjoin scientific, artistic and craft practices to build a cohesive bower of work Craft and the physical pleasure of making are the fuel for my intellectual flights. My daily studio practice is a gleeful carousel of sketching, fabrication, technology and material problem solving. I continually test new media as lenses to convey my ideas, believing that perpetual experimentation and dedicated observation are necessary to attain an intimate knowledge of any material. I erode the barriers of tradition to encourage a fluidity of creation unchecked by perceived function or limits of technology, craft, art, or science.
