| |
Neurologists have determined that the old
brain holds the seat of our most primal understandings of
the world. Goodwill, safety, fear, anxiety, self protection, gravity,
sexuality and compulsive behaviors find their basic roots in this
lower cerebral core.
I make sculpture and drawings that tap this
non-verbal place, provoking emotional, visceral and perceptual
responses — an awareness
of the sublime. These non-representational works are subtle, rhythmic,
and abstract and often manic. The large scale drawings are fields
of marks in a variety of linear media, each developed as a system
that slowly accumulates to create an abstract matrix of perceptions.
The sculptural works are also drawings, expansive,
three-dimensional works made out of wood, thread and wire. I
am interested in the optical and spatial phenomenon that develops
in this work, as it spans the outer reaches of our peripheral vision.
The works also reference physical systems such as heartbeat, respiration,
neural paths and psychological states.
I frequently return to the subtle distinction between drawing as
noun and verb as a long held focus in my studio practice.
This blurred distinction drives my fascination with an expanded definition
of drawing languages and the resurgence of drawing in contemporary
art. My collective body of work is an iteration of this language — a
reassertion of the age-old desire to understand self in place.
My work has been exhibited throughout the United
States and abroad including the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art,
The Drawing Center, Daum Museum of Contemporary Art, Sheldon Memorial
Art Museum, Belger Art Center, The Writer’s Place, Macalester College, North Carolina
State University as well as venues in New Zealand, Quebec and Japan. In
2005, I created a permanent collection installation at the Kemper
Museum of Contemporary Art, the Detroit Institute of Art purchased
one of my drawings, and I had one person shows at the Sheldon Memorial
Art Museum, the Dennos Museum, and the Belger Art Center. My
work was included in a group exhibition “Decelerate” at
the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art in 2006. In 2009, my
work is included in exhibitions at Dolphin Gallery, The Drawing Center
in NYC, Zeitgeist Gallery in Nashville, TN, and the H2O: Film on
Water project in New Hampshire. Cynthia Reeves Gallery in New York
City will host a solo exhibition of my newest work in January 2010.
I have been the recipient of awards and honors includinga Charlotte
Street Foundation Fellowhship, two ArtsKC Fund Inspiration Grants,
the Art Omi International Artists Residency and a Mid-America/National
Endowment for the Arts Fellowships. I was Visiting Artist-in-Residence/Head
of Department at Cranbrook Academy of Art in 2005 and taught for nine
years at the Kansas City Art Institute.
vitae.pdf
|
|