Artist's Statement

My work is grounded in the intersection of the psychological and the social. The evolving imagery—culled from my own photographs of cross-country travels and wilderness hikes, as well as found materials—includes beef, burgers, body builders, trucks, crocheted blankets, cars, and a variety of flora and fauna. Sublime landscapes—evidenced to greater and lesser extents in different pieces—provide an undercurrent.

The images of meat exemplify an ethos of production and consumption and function as a lens for our relationship with the natural world, for consumer culture (its bounty and its excesses) and sustainability. Meat is both natural and processed—indeed, the processing of meat breaks down the distinctions between natural and synthetic. It is body and food; repulsive and beautiful; macho (grade-A beef) and feminist (e.g., the provocative pairing of discomfort and desire in Helen Chadwick's Meat Abstracts).

The Rorschach-like structures were prompted by observation of a natural phenomenon, the mirroring of reflected trees and rocks on the still surface of high-mountain Montana lakes. These inadvertent, natural Rorschachs rekindled my long-standing interest in associative thinking and investing the work with psychological resonances.

One of my overriding concerns is with the tension between recognition and strangeness. Within the large ornamental structures of the mirrored pieces, the close view reveals small bits of representation. Like the once-popular ink-blot test, the work suggests a complicit relationship between viewer and artwork in the construction of meaning.

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Fig. 1.

Are we just going to stand and watch this?, 2008. Hand-cut digital collage installed directly on wall, approximately 10 × 40 ft. Hallwalls Contemporary Art Center, Buffalo, New York.

Photograph by Biff Henrich.

Fig. 2.

Are we just going to stand and watch this?, 2008 (detail).

Fig. 3.

The Mountain-girt ground, #4, 2010. Digital collage/archival inkjet print, 24 × 60 in.

Courtesy of the Dean Project.

Fig. 4.

The Mountain-girt ground, #5, 2010. Digital collage/archival inkjet print, 24 × 60 in.

Courtesy of the Dean Project.

Fig. 5.

#888, 2005. Gouache on paper, 22 × 30 in.

Courtesy of the artist.

Fig. 6.

#1004, 2008. Watercolor on paper, 13 × 13 in. Black-and-white reproduction of color original.

Courtesy of the ADA Gallery.

Fig. 7.

#1041, 2010. Watercolor, collage, pencil, gouache on paper, 5 × 7 1/2 in. Black-and-white reproduction of color original.

Courtesy of the artist.

Fig. 8.

#1003, 2008. Watercolor on paper, 13 × 15 in. Black-and-white reproduction of color original.

Courtesy of the artist.

Fig. 9.

#1014, 2008. Watercolor, graphite, and collage on paper, 14 × 18 in. Black-and-white reproduction of color original.

Courtesy of the ADA Gallery.

Fig. 10.

#1032, 2009. Watercolor and collage on paper, 16 × 38 in. Black-and-white reproduction of color original.

Courtesy of the Dean Project.

Fig. 11.

#1032, 2009 (detail).

Fig. 12.

#1042, 2010. Watercolor and collage on paper, 8 × 27 3/4 in. Black-and-white reproduction of color original.

Courtesy of the artist.

Fig. 13.

#1042, 2010 (detail).

Fig. 14.

#1037, 2009. Watercolor and collage on paper, 8 × 28 3/4 in. Black-and-white reproduction of color original.

Courtesy of the artist.

Fig. 15.

#1037, 2009 (detail).