Subjective Cartography

/ pen, ink, intaglio and screenprint on matte durular

Maps are an important vehicle for assertions of "factual information," but what do the lines and dots symbolize beyond imagined borders and communities? In this series, symbols for topographies and graphs are stripped down to reveal archetypal structures that connect man-made systems back to nature. A vocabulary is built that borrows the visual language of science, mathematics, and cartography. While the resulting aesthetic is somewhat sterile, the motions across the page of pen or blade in hand become a personal, meditative ritual. I approach technical language with intuitive mark making: when process is paramount, the images evolve out of my own mind's archetypes and muscle memory.

Herds, flocks, dots must abide not only to the limitations produced by natural geographies, but also the borders invented by man -- regardless of how "imaginary" they are. Suggested movements and these populations' relationship to their surroundings are intended to depict a silent resistance carried out unknowingly, simply because they have been programmed throughout the generations to move as they must to survive - whether the journeys end at better feeding grounds and survivable climates, or freer nations with better wages. There's a beauty in the numbers - each "speck" incapable of seeing or knowing what our false birds eye view of the world offers.