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Good fiction, while by definition “untrue,” nevertheless elicits human empathy by way of its emotional believability. I regard my work as fiction that strives for a kind of believability while maintaining a stubbornly artificial appearance. I create highly stylized and unrealistic landscapes to provoke a viewer’s sense of what constitutes visual truth.
They are theatrical spaces in which natural elements operate as outward manifestations of inner psychology.
The genre of landscape implies a relationship between an observer and his surroundings.
How we illustrate this connection exposes a power dynamic where causality can be debated. Is it landscape—the outer world—that produces an intellectual or emotional position within us, or do we impose one upon it? I find the potential ambiguity of the relationship fascinating because it raises doubts concerning landscape’s long-held connection with the sublime and the spiritual. While remaining an ardent fan of
artists whose works reverently address these themes, I have a compulsion to paint the instability, frustration, and confusion that are in attendance on such quests. The destabilized landscapes I make are at once sincere and absurd, stylized and cartoon-ish enough so as not to be mistaken for any real locale yet menacing enough to provide a sense of impending danger for the would-be truth seeker.
In my work it is intentionally unclear whether Nature or the human recording of it is responsible for creating obstacles to movement and vision. No vista opens up to allow a perch for peaceful contemplation. Space and perspective are awkward and claustrophobic. Figure and ground separate in some areas only to fuse together in others. Pattern, graphic form, serial imagery, and a limited, high contrast palette are devices used to both simplify and emphasize the artificial quality of the images.
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