Artist Statement

Western knowledge systems treat humans as separate from nature, and we are rapidly experiencing the consequences. I draw on Western and Chinese painting traditions and conceptual methods to close this false separation between the human and the non-human. 

I first engage in sound recordings, walks, interviews, and archival research to create a state of openness and attentiveness. For instance, a series of paintings was inspired by friends' memories of encounters with wild animals. A muted purple palette with a touch of orange evokes a fateful memory of a glimpse of a fox on a beach, while a series of magentas and purples references birds' ability to perceive the ultraviolet part of the spectrum. Bright vivid colors express hope and longing, and reinforce emotions or concepts in relation to the natural world.

Landscape fragments merge together with animals and traces of human activity. Delicate lines intersect with gestural brushwork to evoke mountains, lightning, roots, leaves, dendrites, the movement of birds and animal tracks, and simultaneously speak to micro and macro scales. Soft and veiled layers speak to atmosphere, sky and mist. Birds and coral become witnesses to both ecological and human stories.

Through conceptual works, I question those existing knowledge systems and uncover hidden structures to lay the ground for new ones. A collaborative installation of birdhouses painted black with white dots and dashes recalls both Morse code S.O.S. signals and the patterns on red-bellied woodpeckers' wings, an elegy to millions of native ash trees decimated by the invasive emerald ash borer.

These modes of making complement one another and are fundamental to a system of being that is more fluid and responsive to the challenges that we face. My work invites the audience to acknowledge and process grief, loss and precarity but also enables us to see with empathy in order to imagine new possibilities.