My drawings are about drawing. They manipulate surface
and space. They are my effort to assert control over the objects depicted
through the distortion inherent in the process of representation. From
a distance the imagery appears to move and swarm. Only up close are
the drawn objects discernable. Sheets of folded chicken wire expand
over the panel’s surface while the rigid structures of chairs
are crammed into partitioned spaces.
Up close these objects appear slightly off-balance. All of the items
are drawn from models. But once I figure out the rules of an object,
how light plays across its surface, how the wire in a chain link fence
interconnects, I play with that representation. I never explicitly break
the rules of representation that I discover, I bend them.
I am interested in the way objects become something new when drawn,
in the warping that happens when three-dimensional objects are recreated
in two dimensions. To me these are not flaws in the medium, but the
very elements that make it interesting. Rather than striving to minimize
distortions, I emphasize them, making them evident to a viewer. I want
my drawings to look like drawings, so I accentuate highlights and shadows
and eliminate midtones. The pencil marks are obvious. They are meant
to be viewed as flawed reproductions, not perfect copies.
The illusion of space that is created on the picture plane, and figuring
out under what conditions that illusion collapses is another main facet
of my work. Through the amalgamation and fragmentation of imagery I
create complex spaces. I distort understood rules of representation
in order to flatten space. For example, all of the objects illustrated
are transparent when they come in contact with other imagery. There
is no horizon line, no ground to assign the viewer an understood perspective.
Instead, items can be seen through each other, and there are no cast
shadows.
My intention is to create still lifes that shift in and out of abstraction.
I am interested in the areas where separate items are evident, and also
the areas that complicate into mush. The result is illogical puzzles
composed of banal objects that are drawn from life, but have been altered
to the point of being imaginary.