Artist Statement, specific body of work, very long
“I investigate ways to visually represent the emotional and physical experience of individual isolation. ‘Wading’ is an interdisciplinary project of related bodies of work involving various techniques of sculpture, drawing, and printmaking.
The objective of this project is to explore visual ways to represent the most severe form of isolation as loneliness that is experienced when physically surrounded by other people. This is a specific form of loneliness that is involuntary and imposed upon by others, creating a state of discontent characterized by bitterness and a sense of punishment. It is the presence of others is what can heighten and intensify the experience of loneliness for an individual.
The images in this project depict figure groups wading in water which become vehicles to visually articulating the experience of loneliness. Set within an infinite and undefined body of water, scenes of lost figures communicate moments of isolation between figures. I portray loneliness as the experience of feeling unseen and unknown within a group. The figures all collectively occupy the same space, and yet are locked and isolated in themselves, unable to perceive the figures which physically surround them in the space.
These current drawings represent a process of working which involves multiple stages of development and various media. The process begins with figure sculptures which are created in order to serve as visual references for the drawing studies. The figure sculptures are begun by the construction of armatures which become structural supports for the oil based plastilene clay which is applied to them.
Once the modeling process is completed, these figure sculptures are lit with natural light and carefully observed to facilitate the figures in the drawings. Preliminary drawing studies are made using direction observation from the sculptures, and later referenced in creating the final drawings.
The final drawings are executed with lithographic crayon on a sanded Dura-Lar surface, creating a coarse texture and surface in order to create suggestive, implied figures. The drawings are then layered on top of each other; the translucency of the sanded Dura-Lar surface creating the illusion of ghost-like figures which exist in their own separate reality.
I work with an interdisciplinary approach which encompasses various techniques in drawing, painting, printmaking, and sculpture. New opportunities arise with every shift of medium, which allows for a significant amount of experimentation and spontaneity in the process despite careful preliminary plans.