LOST IN THE WOODS
This group of works deals mostly with pencil drawings on exotic burl veneers. Drawings on wood. After experimenting with an array of different mediums on the wood, I have come to use prismacolor premier pencils most frequently as of late. Drawing on symmetrical patterns in my Rorschach series as well as my love for wood grain is what inspired me to first get involved with veneers. The grain of the wood also bears a striking resemblance to the circular organic scribbles of the Imaginature series, which is a series that was and is still fresh in my mind. All of my processes are influenced by the others. Often times the ultimate goal is to show as many different angles of the imagination as possible, seeing how many themes can overlap and intermingle until there are so many options that every viewer can't help but have a personal and original experience with the piece. The style provokes a perspective that can't help but change continuously as hidden themes reveal themselves in different lights, or in some cases in different orientation. Many of these pieces have themes in every orientation and are capable of hanging all which ways. From the perspective of space, there is no upside down, I often feel the same about my compositions.The series, Double Vision, is what first captured my interest in hidden themes within themes. My use of deception is a statement perhaps on how deceived man can become, fixed on one thing, while a thousand other things stare him in the face waiting to be acknowledged. It is a humbling and inspiring thing to realize that something right before your eyes is not what you thought. It opens the door to all possibilities. I draw inspiration from Mc Escher and his ability to collage images in a way that leaves no room for empty space. His creatures and characters have a relationship of complete collaboration, much like my own characters.They often times occupy a space that works at first glance but seems to alter the rules of science by playing with the viewers expectations. What was once concave is now convex, the background becomes a life form in the foreground, the human is now a lion, and so on. I let my imagination run free and stay true to what i see in the grain. I see human forms and faces, creatures of all kinds from this world and others. I also see landscapes and enjoy creating a composition that can be seen in depth but also in an altered flat plane that fits my theme of shapes and characters. I feel the themes revealed in the wood are also stories told by the trees. Nature plays a key role in the composition of these stories. Circles and geometry play an enormous role in the Lost In The Woods series. These visions can inhabit a space on a galactic planetary scale as well as a microscopic or atomic scale because they emphasize the reoccurring patterns found within nature. All of these places are born from trees and grown into fertile landscapes of the mind.
The Tree of Souls
Lost in The Woods
Collaborating with trees.
archive of progress
