I work within painting, drawing, collage, artist’s books, and installation, focusing on processes of marking. Marking a surface is a fundamental way of communicating meaning as well as declaring our existence in the world: “We were here.” As a visual artist, I spend considerable time obsessing over marks: how they fall on surfaces and what meanings they suggest.
I work mainly with surfaces found in my immediate surroundings, such as furnishing fabrics, vinyl flooring, and actual walls and floors. Rather than being the physical support for my marks, these materials become an integral part of my work. I study each surface closely and experiment with ways of marking it, seeking marks that respond to its appearance, use, or history. That is, the material, appearance, and placement of my marks depend on the surface. As a result, my marks become partially indiscernible, receding into the surface or becoming confused with accidental, natural, or mechanically made marks. Paradoxically, my practice both retains and effaces the artist’s hand since my meticulously made marks tend towards partial imperceptibility.
This inseparability of artist’s mark and surface questions hierarchical distinctions between the two and challenges conceptualizations that associate marking with an autonomous artist. Through my work, I approach marking as a gesture towards something other—initially the surface being marked—and as a way of relating to that other. For me, marking, has the potential to become a process of exploring relationships between self and other, that is, exploring who we are and how we interact with materials, artworks, and the world at large. My work examines modes of relating to the world that do not involve imposing our presence but rather becoming attentive to what is already there, responding to it, and finding ways of working with it.