Somnambulist Tango Press

Statement

Whether building a book, broadside, or wall piece, I am visualizing my relationship with language – its formal structure, the units it is made from, and the inherent and applied subtexts. Because this is a broad approach, I often choose a physical structure or set of symbols as a starting point and let each piece’s subject determine the visual vocabulary.  Pieces are often a response to an idea or experience; at times the making of the piece is the embodiment of the experience. The work is always an attempt to travel toward the place beyond language, to name the unnamable. If the viewer can take the trip with me, if I have communicated successfully, the work is much more rewarding. 

Making myself vulnerable is the catalyst that opens the door between the viewer and the image/language. At times, my work has been described as esoteric, oblique, and “too beautiful.” Conceptually, the pieces make connections between disassociated objects and concerns. Such work may take a viewer some time to assimilate the concept I’m presenting because beauty is its own aesthetic concern. Would you view a garden and call it overwrought? If a piece of art is intense in its beauty, is it vacuous in its meaning? My goal is not be excessive but to be encompassing. Ultimately, I make work that reveals itself over time, shifting and layering its nuances and meanings, a projection of language and experience.