NATURE SEEKER

In an attempt to explore the methods of early American artists, such as Moran and Cole from the Hudson River School of Painting, I went to an American 'wilderness' and backpacked solo with my sketchbook for ten days. The landscape, plant and animal imagery are records from my experience in the Grand Staircase – Escalante National Monument in the desert of southern Utah. The technological imagery is a record of objects in my everyday experience and is used to express the way in which technology has influenced our perceptions of nature.  I developed a narrative based on the historical progression of our changing perceptions of 'nature' and 'wilderness' in America.

I titled the show 'Nature Seeker' because I think we use term nature very loosely in our language today, and as I hiked I felt as though I was seeking a place or an object that embodied the word nature. According to Webster's dictionary, nature is something in its essential form untouched and untainted by human hand. So here lies the crux of my quest. At the very heart of our own description of nature we exclude ourselves from it. Does this mean I am not natural? Although this argument may seem purely semantic it is not. The way in which we perceive nature inadvertently describes the way in which we perceive ourselves. Ultimately, my quest is a journey to define for myself what it means to be human in the present time.

2007

General Artist Statement:

The culture I live in does not emphasize our physical connection and dependence on nature. The current ideology is reliant upon technology, and it promotes disembodied activity such as television [and] computers . . . The gap between man-made and natural is ever increasing.