My art takes its cues from visual languages developed in various scientific arenas and which are used, in part, to make huge amounts of information digestible. These include scientific illustration, museum presentation and diorama. I am interested in exploring how the reductive nature of these languages creates the comforting illusion of a more complete understanding of their subjects. Simultaneously, I borrow from the language of nineteenth-century Romantic landscape paintings and religious iconography, which also attempt to distill vast and mysterious subject matter into comprehensible portrayals.
Recently, I have begun to include pop culture references such as Godzilla and Freddie Mercury in my work. I use this imagery alongside the scientific, religious and romantic elements in an attempt to further question the accepted hierarchy of visual culture. I position the pop-culture references parallel to the philosophical, scientific and spiritual to consider both their disparities and their similarities. Additionally, I hope to examine the way lowbrow figures are imbued with meaning. This can happen in obvious ways, such as the hero worship of entertainers, or in more complex ways, such as how Godzilla, a man in an unconvincing rubber monster costume, can simultaneously exist as an enduringly popular B-movie icon, a complex symbol of the U.S./Japan political relationship, and as a metaphor for the destructive potential of nuclear power specifically, and humanity's tampering with nature in general.
I am not implying that science, religion, fine art and pop culture are equivalent. I am, however, interested in how our yearning for meaning, comprehension and control affects the development and function of all of these disciplines. This sometimes causes an interesting blurring and overlap, where one or more of these areas begin to operate in a way traditionally reserved for another.