Statement
My work is concerned with the hidden, structural beauty of language. Language is a deeply human trait that we use in every aspect of our lives, though its workings are largely mysterious to us as speakers. My work draws attention to those patterns deep in our minds and the rich, varied beauty they contain. I explore the systems of language that we use so effortlessly—phonetics, syntax, semantics, etc.—through prints, drawings, and artist books. Each piece isolates an aspect of a language or a text and creates a visual correlate of its structure, generating imagery from the linguistics of the text itself.
I am drawn to printmaking because its iterative, serial processes are conceptually related to the content of my work. Throughout all areas of language, the notion of smaller units combined into larger structures is central: sounds into syllables, syllables into roots/affixes, roots/affixes into words, words into phrases, phrases into sentences, sentences into discourses. Iteration, recursion, combination via rules, variations on patterns—these concepts are foundational to the way our minds process language. Representing these processes through printmaking, with its inherent iteration, sequence, and serial variation, gives a tangible analogy to the complex beauty of our linguistic knowledge.
