ARTIST STATEMENT
I am an abstract collage artist, and my work explores themes of the natural world and the human condition. The majority of my collages—assembled from precisely cut blocks of paper—are abstracted landscapes based on both physical and mythological places. The landscapes based on a physical place are worked up from memory, sometimes from a view that I see in passing or from a place which I know very well. This process enables me to create an abstraction of the place, fusing both its visual aspects and my emotional response to it. I am interested in color relationships, relative scale, and the challenge of describing natural environments with intentionally undisguised and simple shapes of paper. The placement and shape of each piece in relation to another is precise and specific. I like the fact that collage enables me to visually describe the environment with a material—paper— that itself directly impacts the natural world by its production. Subsequently, I use mostly found and salvaged paper, and the scavenging becomes an important part of the process, underlying the theme and message of the work.