From 31 March 2020 through 31 March 2021, I am an Artist-in-Residence (AiR) with the Department of Earth Sciences at Simon Fraser University (SFU) in Burnaby, British Columbia.
This is my first project since becoming an official Canada Council Emerging Artist.
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This is what I do: I walk around and look at built and natural environments. And what I see is light, movement and form over a foundation of time. (Photography itself shares this viewpoint.)
I search for the elemental beauty and the corresponding human narrative in each place I shoot. And I ask: What are its defining features? What is happening here? What is being revealed?
Primary photos are arranged or tessellated to illustrate “the shape of the place.” I call these dePictos. With up to 500 images per work, I can show more than may be seen by the naked eye. DePictos manipulate scale, flatten perspective and are meant to be read up close and from a distance. They have more in common with mosaic, marquetry, Japanese block prints and map-making than with traditional landscape photography.
Works are named for their GPS coordinates to emphasize the tangibility of place. Linked through exhibition and custom Google Maps, viewers can, literally, follow in my footsteps beyond the gallery space.
The creative concerns of materiality influence the content, form, context, and presentation of finished work, which may be interpreted in photographic, alternative photographic, mixed media and new media forms.