LOVE LETTERS

My paintings are responses to intra-actions I have either witnessed or participated in during my time in specific wetland environments. Many of the entanglements I have encountered are so small, they defy being documented en plein air. So I have begun documenting the smaller intra-actions I encounter using video. Then I respond to the moving images in my studio through painting. This is a form of immersive transcription (Shields 2018), and a means of correspondence (Ingold 2020) for me.

Whether I am outdoors in the wetland environments, or in the studio, it is a process of listening to the many voices of that landscape with my entire body, otherwise known as deep listening (Oliveros 2005). I am engaging reciprocally to and with, movement, gesture, rhythm, sound, and light as I paint. The process is generative, and is an embodiment of, and release of that rhythm, vibration, information, or knowledge. As I am responding to specific wetland organisms through painting, this type of response is akin to writing a letter that will never be read by the intended recipient. I think of these particular works as Love Letters.

The paintings in the Love Letters series are responses to intra-actions I have either witnessed or participated in during my time in specific wetland environments. Many of the entanglements I have encountered are so small, they defy being documented en plein air. So I have begun documenting the smaller intra-actions I encounter using video. Then I respond to the moving images in my studio through painting. This is a form of immersive transcription (Shields 2018), a process of imperfect translation, and a means of correspondence (Ingold 2020) for me.

The 26th of August, Oil on Birch Panel, 20 x 16 x 1.5 in/ 50.8 x 40.64 x 3.8 cm, 2023

One Day in October, Oil on Birch Panel, 20 x 16 x 1.5 in/ 50.8 x 40.64 x 3.8 cm, 2022

By remaining conscious of the fact that these intra-actions I participate in are the natural occurrence of an interconnected world, I am more aware of the transformative power of each small correspondence I partake in — and these are the ones I am aware of. For I have learned from experience, there are many of which I have no cognisance at all.

The First of November, Oil on Birch Panel, 20 x 16 x 1.5 in/ 50.8 x 40.64 x 3.8 cm, 2024

With each encounter, I become more sensitive to the life that surrounds me and I feel more fully human. Because of this, I can’t help but see the world as extraordinarily alive. I guess I can be confident that the one certain outcome of my practice is that I am continually co-evolving with all of the life I encounter along the way.

Three Movements, Installation View, 2023

This practice is an attempt to align myself with and learn from the vibrational rhythms and and ocsillatory movements of non-human life. I search for the locus of these vibrations in my immediate environment, and document them through video. I absorb and align with the gentle fluid movements I find in water (currently in rivers and wetland streams that run through my city) as the water interfaces with the earth, the wind (air), the light, and other lifeforms. I also dance, but in the privacy of my studio. Through my body and my materials, I perform these vibratory movements. It is in this manner I come to understand the complexity of rhythms I experience in my surrounding environment. Moving them through my body is a way of processing and learning from them. The practice becomes a series of iterations through which I learn more about myself and the world I am intimately connected to.