VOIDS

VOIDS is a project that aims to find a visual language to address the things we’re doing to the land that aren’t always visible, including climate change and the plasticization of the ocean.

VOIDS is a project that aims to find a visual language to address the things we’re doing to the land that aren’t always visible, like climate change and the plasticization of the ocean. It’s an attempt to use a metaphorical approach to talk about a subject that a documentary approach doesn’t always effectively communicate. Influenced by the post-war Japanese photographers like Kikuji Kawada and Shomei Tomatsu, the series consists of abstracted black and white landscape images that use the concept of the void in the landscape to evoke the things we sense, but can't see and to create images that bring those scars to the surface, creating a visual image of the felt experience of living in the land during this time of environmental crisis. Despite the fact that climate disasters are front of mind, when out in the landscape, I still experience beauty. These images sit on that line holding both states at once: an awe at the world around us and the weight of what's been done to it. This project is the result of deciding to sit with the void, accept it for what it is.

Most of the images were made with a Fuji GFX100s or were drum-scanned from medium format negatives, so I like to exhibit them at 43x54" (109x136cm) where they are full of detail and the scale and graphic nature of the images really hits home. I want the images to feel overwhelming, matching the mood of the images and content. I print them on Hahnemuhle William Turner paper so that the texture can really be felt and so that the whites warm up, giving them a bit of life. I also like to play with scale in exhibitions with a smaller print alongside a large 43x54" print at times. I believe in creating an exhibition for a particular space and will vary image sizes accordingly within reason.

Bio:

I am an artist, photographer and educator based in Oakland, CA, USA. I make art about the landscape, abstracted, and my process involves making and altering photographs and creating books. I approach the world with an eye towards animistic mythmaking, intentionally unmooring the viewer to create unfamiliar realities out of the landscape. I am also enthralled by the sublime and how the climate collapse continues to produce moments of beauty while inducing real terror at the menace in the landscapes around us. My first book, Creatures Found, was published by The Eriskay Connection in the Netherlands. My work has been exhibited nationally at the Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco, the Sam Lee Gallery in Los Angeles, Pictura Gallery in Bloomington, IN and the Center for Creative Photography in Tucson, AZ, and internationally with Galeria 54 and KOIK Contemporary and in Salon Acme in Mexico City. I have spoken about my work at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NY and my work has been written about in the NY Times and the Los Angeles Times. My work is in the permanent collection of SFMOMA. I have been an artist-in residence at Baer Art Center in Iceland, Casa Lü and KOIK Contemporary in Mexico City, and Tenjinyama Art Studio in Sapporo, Japan. I teach photography and am the Art Department Chair at The Athenian School in Danville, CA.