In this Place

I invite you in- to explore and look in such a way that will allow you to step into a land and to inhabit the place I have encountered. To look and look again, to be surprised and to wonder.

I use photography to get at one way of looking. I play with the nature of photography: pushing shadowy darks to become nearly black, creating a new reality; shallow depths of field present blurred areas. Intense bright light overwhelms parts of leaves or branches so that their edges disappear. There is a transformation I am looking for; we enter this place at once familiar and mysterious. Within the photographic images I find relationships to drawing. I explore the tangled lines and curves of leaves and branches, further altering the known landscape in my drawings.

My drawings respond to my photographs. From each photograph I glean information and select different moments- textures of bark, a sweep of movement in lines of branches, sunlight glancing off leaves. I use white pencil and gouache on black paper to explore the play of light on dark. The resulting stripped down black and white image- recalling a photographic negative- distills the contents of the photographs. The ground and surroundings are invisible. There is a floating sensation: trees, branches, and leaves hover in an otherworldly space. The spareness and economy in the drawings reduces the full riot of lush and dense woods present in the photographs to a set of intimate moments for us to dwell in.

My art practice comes directly from my reverence and love of nature and place; it nourishes me. I couple this with a keen interest in exploring images seen in multiple iterations, noticing what happens when I try this or that variation. I am compelled by this action of a double take, as we look again and explore the images further, teasing out similarities and differences. I want to invoke a deep looking, quietness, and invite a sense of wonder in my photographs and drawings- for myself and for you.