About my Artwork

What would our world be like without trees?

Deforestation and devastating wildfires incited by climate change make it imperative that we consider that very real possibility. These works invite you into a world where trees exist only in memory.

Reliquary for the Last Tree

Plexiglas, charred birch, concrete, lead, LED light

Conceived as a sacred reliquary for a remnant of the last tree, a charred piece of birch wood is laser cut in the shape of the original tree, and set amid a ghostly forest of similar trees.

Laser-etched acrylic panels are joined and framed in hand-molded lead came, in a nod to stained glass windows found in sacred spaces. Impressions of dead and burnt leaves decorate the concrete base, which conceals LED lights that illuminate the remembered forest. The entire piece is in the shape of a decorative fire screen, a reminder of how humans consume wood as fuel.

Sanctuary

Cast glass, oil paint, LED light

This work explores the feeling of sanctuary that a simple shelter provides, while honoring the wood that we harvest to build such shelters. The polished glass has an appearance of ice illuminated from within, and highly detailed wood grain wraps around the form as if it had grown into that shape.

Prayers for a Lost Forest

Cast glass, oil paint, wax

This work invokes the practice of burning votive candles as a form of prayer for a loved one who has died. In this case, my prayers are for forests consumed by wildfire and cut to clear land for human use.

The form of a single dead branch is repeated in cast glass to create a tree-like shape that seems grown from ice or crystal. These unnaturally repeated shapes and man-made materials speak to the lasting genetic changes that humans have wrought on trees.

Imagined Landscapes

Digital paintings

These paintings evoke landscapes, suggesting possible new realities and narratives that connect human imagination to a natural world that does not yet exist. They push the capabilities of the digital medium so that each painting is created using only a minimum of individual brushstrokes.

Views from a Wool Shed

Digital photographs

These views from a wool shed (shearing barn) in the Mahu Whenua wilderness area, Otago, New Zealand, show a landscape that had once been densely forested with native plants, now obscured and denuded by human actions. The NZ government has dedicated resources to restore the land as closely to its earlier state as possible.

Parable of the Oak

Cast glass, concrete, LED light

Of all the species of trees currently facing extinction, more than 30% are oaks.

This hand-sculpted cast glass acorn rests atop a crumbling concrete block that carries the imprints of oak leaves. Light filters through cracks in the base, and illuminates the glass from below. Concrete and glass are the materials of industry, and suggest the process by which humans endanger forests.

The shape and texture of this acorn come from my memories of holding acorns in my hand as a child: the smooth roundness and pointed tip of its seed, the contrasting rough texture of its cap.

Remembered Forest

Digital images

These works capture my memory of an afternoon spent exploring a rural landscape that was once completely forested. Glitch and channel shifting suggest the impact humans have had on our shared environment, and imply imperfections in our remembered reality.