My work is a cumulation of decisions, revisions and adjustments. My process begins with the same questions over and over again: what should i do today? What will it look like this time? I am engaged with developing a modular way of working that incorporates both intuitive and conscious decision making. The making leads the way. My intention is to achieve a perceptual experience where tension exists between surface and illusory space. I seek density and surprise. I’m interested in the moment a dialogue begins to emerge between form and space.

Speaking of Tomma Abts’ work, critic Jan Verwoert emphasized the significance of her practice. he said, “what is at stake here is the critical conviction that consistent decisions in painting should transcend mere tasteful compositions. abts rejects compositions as a rationale for making decisions.” I would like my own work to continue this dialogue. In my process, the composition is chiefly decided upon more by the intuitive employment of various modular units and less by overly conscious decision making. In this way, my hope is that the images compose themselves with minimal guidance from me. I introduced screenprinted forms in an attempt to contrast the soft tonal qualities of the transferred drawings. The screenprinted forms originated in response to specific, singular pieces but they have since been used indiscriminately across the full body of work. I am interested in how each unit contributes to the image building. The space and feeling of a piece changes in accordance to the print order of the individual units.

I do have certain anxieties about using the grid and gesture. My anxieties are caused by the lengthy history and dialogue associated with the post-war devices. The rhetoric of the grid meant a fundamental rationalism, a structure preceded any kind of decision. in contrast, the gesture served to invoke the spontaneity of the painterly act. One contemporary artist who has stated a similar anxiety is Andrew Bick. He has written extensively on the british construction and systems artists and wrestles with the burden of using the modernist devices in his own work. He wrote, “my paintings are endless echoes of the same painting. By generating a digital drawing of the grid of a couple of paintings and then creating a hybrid and cross-breeding that grid in a methodical but random way – anxieties around originality, gesture and system are removed. It becomes a ‘why not?’ moment in the studio rather than a ‘why?’ that i find relaxed and joyful.” I am interested in Bick’s hybrid, generative approach to image building.

The “tree” and “land” pieces offer a retreat from current circumstance. abstraction of land invites introspection. passage to places of rest and reflection appear within the minimal work. Imagined settings foster perception. It is reminiscent of theater sets and is devoid of human presence. In that sense, the work functions as a backdrop to human performance.