Southern California

In this series, I utilize an infrared camera to explore themes of visible light and physical space, including geometric theories in relation to spirituality and the artistic process in landscape. This work in progress serves as a continuing narrative to a larger series, which includes video and public art installation. In 2015 I participated in an expedition to Greenland visiting one of the longest fjord systems in the world, hiking terrains rarely traversed by humans, and spending hours in a small inflatable boat photographing icebergs in inclement weather. This extreme experience was a place where glacier melting revealed itself as an arctic desert. As a Californian, my own backyard is a desert of oppositional forces divided between ocean and mountains. Arid in nature, cactus, flora and rocky horizons are represented in infrared to speak to the delicate balance of loss through animal migration, lack of water and an increase of desert dust. Geometric shapes built into traditional mural is all part of the investigation of an upside down world where Ocotillo and Joshua Trees could become extinct by the end of the century. This project is in recognition of the emotional landscape of polar opposites between the Arctic desert and the California desert, both figuratively and literally. I choose to take a position where scientific research is paramount and the visual lives as documentary evidence. What I hope to obtain with this project is to point to the spiritual objection in the political sphere, and honor the land which nurtures us all.