Research Statement
Over the last six years, my work as an artist has explored humanity’s trace on the environment. I am particularly interested in the idea of a biomarker, or a foreign trace on a body, organism, or landscape as a print. In most of my projects I have been presenting both the print as well as the tools used to make the prints. For instance tools or “sculptural presses” are engineered objects built from found materials collected in the environment. All the inks involved are also made from found materials. These projects are experimental in that they include a time element by taking multiple days to make a single print, but use the traditional language of printmaking of the making of a multiple.
These printing presses also draw inspiration from geologic and biological processes in that the presses I use to create the prints are slow and inefficient, like many processes in nature. Like sedimentation and erosion, they rely on time, pressure, and fluid dynamics. Through these processes, and the use of found materials, these projects address time and are a rumination on the traces humans leave on the environment.
To deepen my understanding of humanity’s impact on world ecosystems, I have collaborated with various scientists across the country. Specifically, I have worked with Senior Scientist Dr. Joan Bernhard from the Geology and Geophysics Department at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, and more recently with Dr. Catherine Davis from the Marine, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences Department at North Carolina State University. Both study the microorganism foraminifera (informally known as “forams”) which are single celled protists. By studying the various foraminifera and their life habits are changing in their natural habitat, particularly in low oxygen environments such as dead-zones, these scientists learn about ho the world’s oceans are changing in response to human activity.
In 2018, I was invited to accompany Dr. Bernhard on a scientific research journey to sample benthic (mud dwelling) foraminifera in the Santa Barbara Basin. The National Science Foundation asks that research teams working on funded projects incorporate public outreach into their work, and Dr. Berhnard invited me so that my creative projects could bring awareness of her team’s research to broader audiences. This trip, which lasted two weeks, informed several projects and resulted in multiple exhibitions, which are included in my seven solo and thirty-five group exhibitions undertaken during the course of my appointment.
In the summer of 2019, I presented the project Psammochthonica anoxiki, at the Science Discovery Center at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. This was a unique venue as my work was presented in a scientific educational space and interacted with new audiences. Also in 2019, I had my first solo show at Bruno David Gallery, a commercial gallery in St. Louis, MO, where I am currently a represented artist. Other solo exhibitions were presented at universities. I pride myself on the range of space these projects have been shown to reach a variety of audiences.
In 2021, I had my largest exhibition to date, Object Permanence, at Opalka Gallery at Russell Sage College in Albany, NY. This show included 70 prints and sculptures. Some of which were time based works activated in the gallery space. This exhibition responded to life during the pandemic by rigorous virtual programming through a project I curated with Opalka Gallery Director Judie Gilmore, called Dispatches from the Iowa Booth. As this project occurred during the Covid-19 Pandemic, the project also featured Zoom lectures and performances by inspiring scholars, scientists, artists and musicians. The musicians performed with hand made musical instruments I constructed. Dispatches from the Iowa Booth offered virtual activities for those unable to attend the gallery during this uncertain time in the world. The Opalka Gallery published a catalog of the exhibition with essays by Judie Gilmore and with Contemporary Art Historian Nicole Woods.
In September of this year, I will once again be traveling out-to-sea in the Pacific Ocean as an Artist Collaborator on the National Science Foundation funded project “Assessing denitrification and other strategies for planktic foraminiferal survival under dysoxic conditions.” I was included as a collaborator on this project to continue to develop work in this science-through-art outreach collaborative research. Dr. Bernhard and Dr. Davis are the Principal Investigators for this project. During our two weeks at sea (leaving from the Bay Area and returning to the San Diego area), we will be collecting water samples and several species of foraminifera dwelling in the water column. I will be collecting materials, making sound recordings, and completing drawings for new works during the voyage.
An interest for this collaboration stems from the current divide in our society between the scientific community and portions of the broader public. A piece of writing that has become very important to my work is the historical scientific text Microbe Hunters by Paul DeKuif. DeKuif tells the history of the first scientists to discover microorganisms and their characteristics starting in the 17th century. In particular, he details the religious, governmental, and public distrust of each new discovery. Church and state criticized these scientists’ work, even when their conclusions were proven to be true. The truth was often inconvenient to the prevailing norms. This sentiment is at the heart of my current interest in making art; to be an advocate and translator of scientific research. We unfortunately still live in a world where experts are not trusted and science is often seen as inconvenient. My hope is that my work with Dr. Bernhard and Dr. Davis, the art that arises from it, and the public outreach I have done through lectures and exhibitions will help deepen the public’s understanding of the scientific process and restore trust in the voices of these experts.
I have also delivered invited lectures on various parts of my practice at over 20 academic art institutions since 2017. Other lectures I delivered were at scientific venues. In conjunction with my solo exhibition at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, I also spoke to the scientific community and the general public. Another lecture in 2021 was through the venerable organization Nautilus Ocean Exploration Trust. During this recorded live feed, I spoke with scientists Dr. Bernhard and Chris Powers as they were out-at-sea conducting research on the Nautilus Research Vessel.
Printmaking is situated in a very interesting place in the arts, with contemporary printmakers expanding their work into sculpture, photography, sound and nearly every other visual arts discipline, while still maintaining a sense of identity and context within the Printmaking field. Southern Graphics Council International is an organization where I presented printmaking adjacent projects such as Dead-zones at the Texchange Conference in Dallas (which I detail below). At the 2024 SGCI conference in Providence, RI, I will be Co-chairing a panel with Johanna Winters titled Playback, which will cover the link between sound and image. Another significant international organization celebrating print is the IMPACT Conference (International, Multi-disciplinary, Printmaking, Artists, Concepts and Techniques). I exhibited several prints at the Impact 10 Conference Encuentro in Santander, Spain in September 2018.
Two prominent national printmaking organizations are the Mid America Print Council (MAPC) and the Rocky Mountain Print Alliance (RMPA). I presented at both the 2020 and 2022 MAPC conferences, which were organized by Kent State University. Johanna Winters and I will also be presenting a two-person project at the RMPA Kismet Conference in Spokane, WA, in October of 2023.
A growing part of my artistic practice features performance components. My teaching often transcends the classroom and enters my studio work as exemplified by my performance Dead-zones, at the Southern Graphics Council International on a bus route connecting two institutions. In this project two printmaking students, Kala’i Blakemore and Casey Matthews played the roles of two leading biologists. We performed a script I wrote based on academic papers and email correspondence I had with Dr Bernhard. We were in costume and shared large format prints surrounding the research and collaboration.
Another satire-based performance was Control Variable, which shared the scientific research on foraminifera through 11 fantastical costumes. The project was conducted with the course “Wearable Art-Unfashionable” as a Visiting Artist at the Penny W. Stamps School of Art & Design at the University of Michigan in 2019. The project started by collaborating with Rebecca Modrak’s version of this course over Zoom. I designed costumes and wrote a script from afar, and the students built and interpreted the costumes under my specifications. I then visited the school and we practiced and presented a performance on the campus of the University of Michigan that disrupted everyday norms and created conversation with the pubic.
A unique tradition with the field of printmaking is the “themed portfolio”- a curated presentation where a small selection of artists each contribute one print connected to the same concept or idea. Since 2017, I have been in ten themed portfolios curated by venerable members within the print community.
I have also recently been included in several collections. My prints have been included in the Southern Graphics Council International Archives, the Bernard A. Zuckerman Museum of Art (ZMA) at Kennesaw State University, and the Mid America Print Archive at Indiana University. The Mulvane Art Museum has also acquired a print of mine. New works have also been included in the Artist Printmaker Research Collection (AP/RC), the Museum of Texas Tech University, and the Frogman’s Print Workshops Archive in Council Bluffs, IA.
When the world shut down due to the pandemic I started researching traditional musical instrument building. I started learning from Tracy Cox at Inlay Design Studio in the Adirondacks Mountains of NY. In August of 2020 there was a derecho (intense damaging windstorms) in the Midwest. Iowa was hit hard by this intense straight-line windstorm and thunderstorm. Sadly, it was said that 7.2 million trees were lost in Iowa during that storm. Over the days and weeks I collected logs from many Iowa City trees. I embarked in learning about milling lumber on a small scale. I appreciated the slowness of preparing lumber as in general every inch of wood requires one year of dry time.
As these experiments grew I started bringing printmaking processes and the scientific research into the construction of these instruments. The Globorataloides hexagonus Ukulele was made from wood (locust, cedar, walnut, pear) collected after the 2020 derecho in Iowa. The interior of this instrument has a silkscreened printed image referencing the surface of a foraminifera, particularly the species Globorataloides hexagonus. The image printed on wood depicts the surface texture of the organism. I like the play of heirloom quality objects that utilizes Zoomorphic design. I wanted to start to make objects that focus on small organisms that were not historically decoratively included in functional objects. In a time when so much of the natural world is being communicated by small unseen things, these microorganisms are telling us about global change.