Artist Statement

Woodblock printing is a lesson in juxtaposition—to add lines, patterns, and shapes to a print, I carve away the wooden surface, removing the area all around my intended marks. The raised wood left behind is what makes the image when printing. Carving away negative areas reveals the positive ones and images read backward on the block but forward on the paper.

The process itself is binary—wood is either cut away or left behind—there is no middle ground. Decisions along the way, while not cut in stone, are definitely cut in wood, and often irreversible. Amplifying the medium’s inherent risk, I make most of my images using a reductive process. This means that I carve and print in stages, cutting back into the same blocks from which I’ve previously printed. This technique presents the juxtaposition most striking to me: as I work, I am both creating and destroying simultaneously. In order to build up the layered surface of the printed image I must continually cut through the wood left behind on the block. In this way, carving and printing becomes a meditation on duality. And as I meditate this way, I think about how our minds work like this—we print and imprint, layer and remove information, revise and redefine our stories as we go.

This is the reason I create abstractions—I want to use this process to tap into my subconscious—specifically how it undergirds my understanding of what I see and know. The resulting imagery resides in a gap between seeing and naming—the space between the familiar and unfamiliar. Beginning with the Surrealist technique of automatic drawing, I construct, obfuscate, and compound shapes and lines that flow from some deep unknown reservoir of visual information captured over my lifetime. I create numerous thumbnail sketches until I land on one that intrigues me through its oddly compelling mix of ambiguity and familiarity, of readings both sacred and profane, visceral and ethereal, and comprising both known and unknown storylines. From this initial black and white sketch, I begin the slow journey to bring these works into existence, carving with hand gouges and printing with the back of a wooden spoon over weeks and months of time.

I hope these woodcuts entice, challenge, and puzzle you—helping you explore how you name and know what you see when you look. I hope they help you uncover the manifold ways the subconscious mind is continually cutting through and subtly informing and altering our perceived experiences.

Website | CV