I grew up in Texas, a land where all the seasons enjoy some variation of warmth. Sunny southern weather enabled me to participate in outdoor activities throughout the year. Growing up my parents focused on the fundamental value of discovering myself outdoors in the natural surroundings as well as developing my personal creative drive. When I decided to further my art career through graduate school, I relocated outside of Chicago at Northern Illinois University. Living in a northern environment for the first time, I began to interact directly with natural material as a method of experiencing and connecting with this new environment. Not able to spend as much time outside, I realized how much I genuinely needed to keep the natural world a significant part of my life.

Traditionally a representational artist, I veered into my own version of still life or landscape imagery. Historically, artists have always been drawn to representing nature, generally utilizing paint or photography. I combine these two techniques into a hybrid. The natural material becomes a negative through a process of arranging the objects on paper and spray painting over them, creating a play between negative and positive space.  Either as the wind blows or by my own hand, the material is rearranged on the paper throughout the spraying process creating a sense of ephemerality. The work mimics the fleeting mood one often experiences amongst the trees.

Attracted to the systemic and organic structure of the environment in comparison to the linear approach in which mankind orders natural material, I put my own hand back into the process by furthering the development through print, drawing, and painting, as well as incorporating technology to push the overlap of two worlds.

When standing in front of my work, the viewer is catching a transitory glimpse in time created with site specific vegetation. The directness of the work generates a quiet, reflective space that captures the romantic side of nature. A breath of air, a shimmer of sunlight, a flickering shadow cast by a leaf all produce a swirling effect amid the trees. Within this dance, I catch a moment, never to be replicated in the environment again. We all need a chance to catch our breath in this urban age and allow ourselves to drift back into the woods, becoming another shadow on the forest floor.