Artist’s Statement

When presented with the insurmountable, how do we respond? How do we mend, right wrongs, fix? The simple answer is to take action, do something, anything. As we begin to manipulate the seemingly inflexible challenges that we face, we see the intractable become malleable. The recalcitrant moves. I can change things, you can have an effect, we can make a difference.

Prints from the series Attenuate show mending hands manipulating ambiguous material in spaces defined only by color and pattern. In early medical texts illustrations taught healers to mend maladies by showing the disembodied hands of practitioners manipulating ailing bodies to achieve desired effects. Here, the viewer may place herself or himself in the position of one tending to and managing the amorphous problems that we have unwittingly unleashed upon the world. My work directly addresses global warming and our current, human-impelled climate change while calling more broadly for mindfulness and conscious attention to the effects that our individual actions and inactions have upon the world. I speak as an observer of society, a witness to a crisis, and an active participant in this problem. I urge my viewers to take responsibility for how we are changing the world by changing behaviors and habits, by taking action.