y work deals with opened or contained spaces and invites the viewer to contemplate our perception of the space that we inhabit. Part of my process is about finding the precise point between figuration and abstraction where space is both described and abstracted at the same time. I am abstracting the representation of something concrete- a specific place. As space contained, the points of departure are strip malls, parking lots, zoos, and urbanizations, places that enclose a utopian ideal, coercing the inhabitant toward happiness, entertainment, or consumption. Contrasted to these enclosed spaces is the open measureless space of nature. Represented in forests and woodlands, as chaotic or romantic, I am examining how our perception of nature is often nostalgic, a picture that we carry within us, of longing, desire or loss.
I use different aesthetic languages to speak about the ideas behind the work. The shopping malls repeat the rational ideals of modernist form, while the forest pieces consciously adopt a style that calls to mind romanticism and 19th century drawings. Our need to impose what we think of as order and reason on what we perceive of as chaotic or irrational is reflected in the languages at play in this work. The irony of how when we attempt to impose order on the natural world, we create the opposite effect, hence the contained spaces of the parking lots appear open, while the unbounded space of the forests appear thick and impenetrable.
