FLATLANDS
Whenever I fly, I try to get a window seat. While other passengers are checking out the in-flight movies, I've got my face pressed to the glass, looking down at the earth.
I had sketches for these in my journals going back several years before I actually started creating them. I assumed they'd be paintings, but I was trying to think of a way to apply the paint that captured the flattening that occurs looking down, in map-view, at a 3-dimensional landscape. One day I was walking through Home Depot looking for a belt sander, and I happened to wander down the flooring aisle. Something clicked when I saw the linoleum. It seemed like a perfect metaphor for the "floor" of the earth. I brought a few pieces back to the studio and did some tests, cutting out shapes with an Exacto knife and gluing the pieces to wood panels. Soon after that I discovered Linoleum City in Los Angeles, which became my favorite source of art supplies.
Over time, the imagery began to incorporate biological forms, as I noticed the similarity between aerial views of the land and what you might see through a microscope. Though I spent a lot of time looking at satellite photos, AAA roadmaps, and images of microbiology, none of these works represent actual places or organisms. They were all improvised, and emerged through the process of cutting and inlaying the flooring materials.
