Haptomnemonic topography

2014-present

The primary style of my current ink painting is based on an inner humanist anxiety that tries to coalesce different contrary realms of personal experience into one unifying lens. To borrow an architectural analogy, this is a process of creating a sound foundation for an elaborate structural space in a geologically incongruent lot. The process of creating these paintings is a form of ritual performed to address my need to harmonize the tangible and intangible aspects of perception and memory in order to confidently address the human dilemmas of ecology, economy, society, and spirituality with a unified viewpoint.

The phrase Haptomnemonic topography derives from my long time preoccupation with spatial relationships in all levels; from those as immense and esoteric as astronomical space, to those as small and banal as table settings. As it is an art form that balances spatial impartiality with perceptive reality, topographic cartography and its structured fluidity offer a conceptual medium to accomplish this style of painting. The ordinariness and flatness of a monochromatic two-dimensional plane reflects the geometric impartiality imbued in topographical maps. Because my response to the meeting of map-like layers of experience is an erratic emulsion of emotions and memory fragments, the work echoes the haptic vibrations of the tension experienced when faced with welding together knowledge gained from the memories of one personal identity that is diametrically opposed to the knowledge gained from those of a different personal identity.

Selected works