Portfolio > Consequences of Competing Narratives

My new collages inhabit a space between abstraction and figuration,
anthropology and storytelling, cultural and personal myths: where belief mingles with magical thinking. Utilizing landscape and portrait as a point of departure—a visual anchor—allows me to pursue my pervasive themes through images: psychological, psychedelic, erotic undertones; esoteric and occult symbols; the illusion of impossible situations. Simultaneous narratives are a desired result. I approach collage from an intuitive process, attempting to create images like visual hallucinations, a kind of delirium, all the while inhabiting and
exploring that intimate space between viewer and image, and creating an
experience that rewards slow looking. It is important that the viewer knows the work is generated by hand. Contemporary magazines are my source material, anthropological documents from which I excavate necessary parts, to breathe new life into such materials. I employ drawing, appropriation, and frottage, which involves sanding—a gesture of revealing what’s beneath. Images of hands and their iconography of gesture are prevalent in these collages. They grasp and release fractured, incomplete words in the shape of spheres. To me, this is a
metaphor for contemporary life: an inability to fully articulate reality, the failure of inept language to conjure miracles; the realization that all we have in the end are stories to pass along.

Unadulterated Longing
Collage
10.75 x 14.5 inches
2024
Wishing Well
Collage mounted on panel
10 x 8 x 1 inch
2024
Critical Mass
Collage mounted on panel
24 x 24 x 7/8"
2023
Embedded
Collage mounted on panel
24 x 24 x 7/8"
2023
Storytellers and Pattern Seekers
Collage mounted on panel
24 x 24 x 7/8"
2023
Ancestor Whisperer
Collage mounted on panel
18 x 18 x 7/8"
2023
Juggling Act
Collage mounted on panel
18 x 18 x 7/8"
2023
A Comparison Game
Collage mounted on panel
20" X 20" X 7/8"
2023
A Bargain with Chaos
Collage mounted on panel
14" x 14" x 1"
2023
Spiritual Signature
Collage
11" X 9"
2022
Souvenirs of Childhood
Collage
11.5" X 8.5"
2022
Our Sincere Condolences
Collage
11" x 9"
2022
Feeling Very Activated
Collage
11" x 9"
2022
Anyone, Anything, Anywhere
Collage mounted on panel
12" x 12" x 1"
2023
Hiding and Broadcasting
Collage mounted on wood panel
12" x 12" x 1"
2023
Own Nothing, Be Happy
Collage mounted on wood panel
20" X 20" X 1"
2022
Compliance Ratio
Collage mounted on wood panel
20" X 20" X 1"
2022
Landscape with Expectations
Collage mounted on wood panel
12" X 12" X 1"
2022
Amalgam
Collage
22" x 22"
2022
Moving Targets
Collage
11 x 8 in
2022
Suspicious of Isms
Collage mounted on panel
18" x 18" x 1"
2022
The Heart of the Matter
Collage mounted on wood panel
10" x 10" x 1"
2022
Thaumaturgical
Collage mounted on panel
30" X 30" X 1"
2023
Dark Star
Collage
21.5" X 22"
2021
Emblems in a Disfunctional Landscape
Collage mounted on Canvas
24" X 24" X 1"
2021
The Process of Elimination
Ink and Collage on Paper
22.5" X 15.5"
2021
Ensalda de Palabras
Collage
15" X 10.5"
2021
Study in Compliance
Collage on paper
19.5" X 25.5"
2021
Trophy Hunter
Collage
11" X 8.75"
2021
Exploit the Unwary
Collage mounted on Canvas
24" X 24" X 1"
2021
A Study in Darkness
Collage on Paper
11.25" X 9.25"
2021