Northern Catch
2020 - Present
Oil on Panel
Works on Paper
Artist’s Book
This series is a pleasure project inspired by my childhood of growing up in Anchorage, Alaska, where I spent time by the ocean and watched the sky for the Aurora Borealis. The work takes Alaskan imagery and abstractly layers it in a way that references memory, or the feeling of that space. As my place of origin, it captures a kind of playful magic that I connect with Alaska.
When I was a child, my dad gave me a film camera and I took as many photographs of the landscape as I could. Upon rediscovering this childhood archive in albums and bags, I started to collage the photos with more recent images, making a kind of constructed landscape. In my oil paintings, these landscapes are manipulated and layered to give the instantaneous impression of a place that can only exist in memory.
Conversely, the mixed media paper artworks are a practice in deconstruction. First, I zoom in on a detail in an oil painting from this series and recreate it on a large sheet of watercolor paper. Next, I cut it into shapes like mountains, glaciers, and fish nets, elements of the Alaskan landscape. This act of creating and destroying a painting in order to make something new allows space for pure play; it is a kind of call and response that is reminiscent of childhood games. Finally, I layer the paper to distort perception. For example, what looks like a shadow is usually on the top layer while what should be positive space is below the surface.
The process of making this work parallels my glance back at childhood and its inseparable connection to the Alaskan landscape. By manipulating shapes from the place that I love, the series evokes a panglossian nostalgia.
Mixed Media on Clear Acrylic
2017 - 2018
