The foundation of my work is developed from a practice of repurposing found objects whose very materiality is steeped in associations with a shared American past. In my work, I sift through the detritus of mainstream culture and reassemble motifs and iconography, disrupting familiar associations to home: house and planet. I am interested in playing with the psychology behind the production of home by juxtaposing functional intent and idiosyncratic responsiveness.

As my investigation has proceeded, it has become more evident that nostalgia is harnessed by industry in promoting product consumption. In modern American domestic life, product consumption is a requirement for an all-American lifestyle. The image of the American dream is a nostalgic image. When reality begins to seep into our homes, it can be chased out with new products or motifs that borrow from images of the past. It is through nostalgic imagery that we feel a connection to the places we live, regardless of our involvement with our local, national, and global communities.

In my most recent work, I explore allusions to landscape and human records of natural phenomena. Using maps, images, and direct experience I have been deconstructing and reconstructing geological landmarks through a multitude of digital processes including drawing with vectors, 3D modeling, and video. The maps and images I am looking at are often outdated historical records of human observations of the natural world, which I defer to with intention. Human beings’ contemporary relationship with the planet’s ecosystems, geologies and atmosphere arrives out of nostalgia for our past ignorance. In that time the earth was a “God given”, resource rich wellspring of abundance. One day in the future, our species may only have our records as evidence of a once spectacular ecosphere.