Stage Work (2023)
In the fall of 2022, I began an open-ended series of work in my studio using a built wooden stage, collected materials (natural and manufactured) and studio lighting. The exciting/challenging part of this new direction was having absolute control over the creative builds in an indoor environment. Before this, I had become accustomed to working outdoors and feeding from happenstance outside of my control within Newfoundland’s quickly changing weather conditions.
These stage-works have come about by collaging together disparate snippets of my lived experience, media exposure, general ephemera and seeing what reemerges: reality to fiction and then back again. Words overlap with place to set up mysterious and layered compositions that I hope are meaningful or suggestive for the viewer. The subjective thrust of this series is eclectic and perhaps more esoteric than previous bodies of work. Imagery is synthesized from the deeply personal (the death of my dear mother) to corralling thoughts and visions from Costa Rican travel to world events to yearning for a return to wonder.