Accumulation: An Installation in Two Parts

About This Project

Lost Coast Culture Machine, Fort Bragg, California
Concept, October 4 – 29, 2013
Evidence, November 1 – December 1, 2013

My artwork addresses the current climate change. It is the result of accumulation. Accumulation of carbon and greenhouse gasses. Accumulation of passive disregard and concerted neglect. Accumulation of actions. Accumulation of inactions. 

Accumulation is a part of concept, process, form, and content in my work. Ideas build upon themselves. The beginning of a work forms from the completion of another. Marks build upon marks. Images relate to one another and speak as words forming a sentence. Prints are not just multiple iterations of an image, but component parts that come together to form a greater whole. Repetitive process speaks of repetitive action. Amassed elements become seemingly insurmountable realities. The beauty of our industry and innovation is suddenly the specter of our nightmares.

By creating works that confront my viewers with this reality, I urge them to consider the effects of our accumulated effects. I ask my viewers to consider, at what point we take responsibility for how we are changing the world? We have locked ourselves into a climate change. But, we can effect the degree to which the climate change will be experienced in the future. How can we change our behaviors and habits to mediate the effects of climate change for our world’s future?

In Concept, I will present a series of new mixed-media drawings. These drawings are an accumulation of materials, marks, processes, and actions. They are the result of the accumulation of ideas and efforts stemming from the accompanying artist’s book that preceded them in production. 

For Evidence I will create a print-based installation that is a response to the mixed-media drawings presented in Concept. Constructed of wallpaper, screenprints, monoprints, and hand and laser cut paper, this work will address the complexity of our industry and its accumulated effects. 

Evidence will also include a Trade Your Carbon for Art project. Interested participants will donate small works which will be exhibited on a salon-style wall. The public will be invited to complete forms upon which they list a way in which they commit to reduce their personal carbon footprint. These individuals will then be given the opportunity to trade this commitment for a work on the salon wall by pinning it in its place. The traded work becomes a contract with the community to improve one’s relationship with the environment. The salon wall becomes a document of a community’s dedication to bettering the environment’s future.