Artist Statement

Currently my artistic practice pursues my connection to the natural world by investigating wild animals in my image. Either through process or product, my prints juxtapose the human form with that of the animal, using portraiture, ambiguous figures or segmentation of the body, in order to develop personal connections with these entities of nature.

Having lived my entire life back and forth between two very different surroundings: the bustling suburbia of Calgary and the quaint mountain town Invermere, I have always yearned to be more connected to my environment. These feelings of disengagement with my ever-changing habitat and a longing for a stronger connection to the natural world were the catalysts that began my examination of wild animals.

Unlike myself, wild creatures are very much in harmony with their surroundings and I have always been curious to see if I still possess some of their qualities, despite my constant shift in settings. I juxtapose myself with wildlife in an empty space, in an attempt to analyze, understand and interact with them, without the suppressive conditions of a real environment.

This juxtaposition of human and animal is sometimes seen only during the creative process, where I am physically and mentally interacting with an animal through the production and process of a portrait or it can be seen in the final imagery, where human and animal forms exist together in a void. When removed from their original environments and placed in an abstract space, artist and animal are able to connect together where their personal characteristics, not their environments, describe them as beings. Within this milieu they are able to coexist, engage and relate with each other in so many ways that true life encounters could never facilitate.

Using print media to produce my imagery is important to my practice because the physical and mental exertion needed to construct a finished print is reflected as an investment in my relationship with that particular animal. Fascinated with texture, line, descriptive qualities and the small details that are pivotal to understanding and viewing these beings as a larger, collective entity, I use meticulous mark making, layers of aquatint and shape my zinc plates with a jeweler’s hand-saw, to describe them as vividly as possible. Spending countless hours with these creatures, analyzing and recording their details allows them to come to life in the void space.

Book arts are also an integral part of my creative process, as the book is an object that references the intimate and the personal but also reflects the origins of printmaking. When my prints are bound together in a collective, it helps to reinforce narratives between the prints, while also creating a more private and personal experience for the viewer.