Artist Statement:
At its core, my genetic-based work is an exploration of how science filters our cultural understanding of nature. Through the lens of personal experience I find myself reexamining a familiar dialectic between nature and culture but from a contemporary context. Genetics is particularly well suited to this pursuit since its research generates palpable implications for us at both the individual and cultural levels.
In Genotyping, I am interested in exploring various ways we come to codify our surroundings through scientific means. I use the four letter coding language science uses to describe the chemical coding of heredity (i.e DNA). By overlaying DNA onto the surface of various bodies I invite the viewer to consider how our definition of life is shifting. On the surface the work projects a formalistic fascination in the minuscule yet utterly complex internal systems that genetics seeks to decode, but layered in these works are more daunting questions about how genetics is redefining notions of personal identity, free will, and what constitutes life itself as genetic engineering becomes commonplace. In other words, does science’s quest to decode and make malleable life’s internal organizing structure deepen our cultural and personal understandings of life or cloud them?
1. Genetic Headline, 2011, Archival Inkjet Print, 20" x 16"
2. Wall Work #1 (Pinus taeda Cellulose Synthase), 2012-2013, Archival Inkjet Print, 27.5” x 22” 16.
3. Wall Work #1 (Pinus taeda Cellulose Synthase), detail
4. Reassembling the Evidence (Termes hispaniolae cytochrome oxidase gene in termite wings), 2013, Archival Inkjet Print, 22” x 27.5”
5. Cloverfield, (Trifolium repens Cytochrome P450 gene), 2012, Archival Inkjet Print, 27.5” x 22”
6. What Lies Beneath (Poa pratensus Pollen Structure gene), 2008-2013, Archival Inkjet Print, 22” x 27.5”
7. Writing down my history, 2007-2011, Archival Inkjet Print, 20” x 20”
8. Where Have the Sand Fleas Gone? (Pagarus Longicarpus cytochrome oxidase gene), 2012, Archival Inkjet Print, 22” x 27/5”
9. Paradise Lost, 2013, Archival Inkjet Print, 22” x 27.5”
10. Night Gourd, 2013, Archival Inkjet Print, 22” x 27.5”
11. Honey Tree, 2013, Archival Inkjet Print, 22” x 27.5”
12. Irresistible Desire (Human glucose transporter 2 gene in honey), 2013,
Archival Inkjet Print, 22” x 27.5”
13. Summer Made Sweeter, 2014, Archival Inkjet Print, 27.5" x 22"
14. Looking Forward, Looking Back, 2015, Archival Inkjet Print, 27.5" x 22"
15. Serialized Egg, 2008, Archival Inkjet Print, 14" x 11"
16. Melting Chromosomes, 2006-2013, Chromogenic Print, 27.5” x 22”
17. Melting Chromosomes, detail
18. It Starts out Easy, detail
19. It Starts out Easy, 2011, Tintype, 14” x 11”
20. The Code that Kills, 2009, Cyanotype, 16”x 22”
21. Prunus avicum, 2008-2013, Archival Inkjet Print, 40” x 60”
22. Prunus avicum, detail
23. Acer Saccharum #1, 2007, Archival Inkjet Print, 20” x 30”
24. Acer Saccharum #2, 2007, Archival Inkjet Print, 20” x 30”