Point of Departure
February 12 - April 9, 2010
Alice R. Rogers & Target Galleries, Saint John's University Art Center
Reception: Thursday, March 11, 5:00-8:00 p.m.
Artist Talk: Thursday, March 11, 6:00 p.m.

Artist Statement:
In our culture today we have become used to splitting our lives into parts. The constant commuting between loved ones and our career compartmentalizes our lives while we struggle to define our true sense of place. This sense of dislocation is a reoccurring theme within my work; re-establishing myself yet again has allowed me to re-examine this process of disconnection and reconnection.

Analyzing my recent experiences while relocating, I have found that the system of travel is a highily complex and sophisticated abstraction. There is a dichotomy present; on the one hand we have the system, which is larger than the individual, the experience of travel is unified and abstracted by higher powers to better aid our feelings of comfort and safety as we soar through the air or speed along the interstate. We follow rules. We read maps and signs, we have a continuity of design despite the distance - the system presents itself as seamless and controlled.

On the other hand we have an individual's experience of travel - the senses, the action, the accompanying emotion as we leave or reunite with homes and loved ones. We fear the systems failure or our failure inside the system - we are unpredictable and variable.

My concern within my work is, if there is a gap between the system and the individual, with the system larger than the human, does it encourage our sophisticated removal into abstraction and our ease with the representation rather than the reality?

Adopting visual cues from within the different network systems while coexisting them with the expressive nature of painting I create a dialogue between the unpredictable and the controlled - the human within the system.