ARTIST STATEMENT
Looking at any work of art, I find myself in the common, yet unusual, position of expecting the unexpected—something about the work that is different, something in the encountering of it that attracts my interest and sustains my gaze. I’m looking for the art in the object of art, for some poetical turn lodged within or arising from the work’s structure that will affect the shape and tone of my own sensibilities, an aesthetic experience that will invite my fascination and open me to an increased sense of wonder.
The works I’ve presented here continue to coax and conjure my vision of crafting a kind of three-dimensional trompe-l’oeil. Through the use of non-transparent reflective sheets set carefully vis-à-vis one another, I work to depict glasslike objects, and other transparent solids. The perceptual and conceptual ambiguities of this imagery highlight viewer engagement as one of the work’s most integral and compelling facets. Positioned as a site for this personalized experience, each work offers a transitional moment of “ah-ha!” when it is detected to be other than it appears. The viewer’s heightened awareness of this difference between “looking at” and “seeing into” the object becomes key as the uncanny encounter unfolds upon sustained perceptual shifts and cognitive revelations. In this way, the work offers reflection on an illuminated present, and its apparent transitions through a discreet series of unfolding moments in time.
