MAP
The map paintings are like autobiographies, maps representing specific locations in my memory and experience. I was there. These paintings denote the physicality of a location, and the visible memory of it. In my mind, I examine the specific terrain of a remembered site, exploring it from above and beneath the ground or water. I recall the places from my childhood—memories of hiking up a mountain, watching the underwater world of a frozen creek, digging in the dirt, swimming in a dark glacial lake— and re-vision the landscape. The square canvas negates a hierarchical orientation for the paintings. I refer to the language and symbols of traditional cartography—rivers, elevations, path markers—and I use a nearly monochromatic palette reminiscent of old print maps. In the act of painting, I revisit these places of my past; the painting is a map of the journey.