About
Artist Statement
I think of my practice as one that explores the theoretical pidgin languages that could exist between painting and adjacent mediums. A pidgin is an impermanent, sparse, and coarse language used for communication between groups not sharing a common tongue. Escaping its own language costs painting its prestige and it must speak simply in a present tense peppered with onomatopoeia and gestures. The simplicity of pidgin speaking can be illusory: where the comfort of a common language is absent and complex grammar impossible, painting must constantly translate, interpret and guess at how to convey meaning.
My studio process creates cyclical and partially painterly spaces which call these languages into existence so that I can portray them. I paint a stroke, peel it up and bend into sculptural forms; I photograph this, print it and paint on it or use it to cast shadows on a piece of paper where I paint a responding stroke and begin again. Where a large stroke is needed I paint a tiny one and enlarge it photographically, where a red coloured stroke is needed I develop one in cyan on a negative or hand-colour a black and white print. Where a section of a painting is too dark I angle it toward the sun and mask the light with paint strokes to fade its surface.
In both concept and process, I amplify risk of misunderstandings, unintended jokes and failed processes. I encourage accidents and muddy purity with fugitive materials and guide my hand with half-true narratives harvested using translation techniques cribbed from OULIPO and cut up exercises bastardized from Burroughs and Gysin.
Biography
I studied painting at the Alberta College of Art and Design (Calgary) and I live and work in Berlin (Germany). Recent solo exhibitions include THE ONLYES POWER IS NO POWER, VITRINE (London); On Invasive Species and Infidelity’, The Art Gallery of Alberta (Calgary); Please Boss Remember Me, VITRINE (London); Die Welt In Farben P|M Gallery (Toronto); and Last Summer I Build A 1:8 Scale Model of Your Vagina, Staatsgalerie Prenzlauer Berg, (Berlin). My recent group shows include A journey from a sweeping gesture to a lasting effect, VITRINE (Basel); NOT A PHOTO, The Hole (New York City); and The Painting Project, Galerie de L’UQAM in Montreal, CA. I received an honourable mention in the prestigious RBC Canadian Painting Competition in 2008, and exhibited in the Alberta Biennial of Contemporary Art in 2015 and 2017.