I am interested in the subjective and personal aspects of science and nature and observation and collecting.
I have browsed the libraries at scientific institutions and searched in used bookstores to build my own collection of scientific texts, natural history compendiums and field guides of every sort. I have worked with marine biologists on diagrams, translating unseen information into pictures. These are the sources of my imagery.
My work composes an informational diagram or practical element and a depiction of an organism. I am presenting something about the scales of biological systems – from reductionism to the whole organism, the unseen beauty of the morphology, the ecological position, the role in evolution. The integral is both ambiguous and familiar, interconnected and distinct.
My continuing examination of images in old publications and guidebooks and at museums and labs has given me a sense of scientific history and informs the structure, composition and color of my drawings and paintings. Looking at this imagery has also shown me the human tendency to accept a graphic representation as “true” and to find reassurance in the order and classification of the natural world.
Drawing with pressed seaweed refers to collections and the manner in which they were composed.
In drawings inspired by Darwin’s book, “The Power of Movement in Plants”, the mapping of plant movement shifts through a seedling.
In other drawings and paintings, programs for controlling instrumentation and analyzing data written by contemporary scientists float with imagery of microscopic ocean organisms culled from old text books.
I am influenced by vernacular and amateur (including my own) perceptions (and misperceptions!) of nature. I grew up observing nature with my mother, a birdwatcher, and my father, a fisherman and hunter. We looked for signs and tracks to identify and admire and remember. The observation of things in the natural world became a part of my life.