Portfolio
My output as a visual artist reflects a long-term love-hate relation with systems-based practice. In common with many contemporary artists, it is fair to say that my work lacks consistency! That is, I do adopt more than one aproach to making stuff; I am a strong believer in ‘learning on the job,’ and experimenting with new tools and techniques is important to me. That said, most of my work has consisted of fairly long-term and often labour-intensive projects, some based in digital media, others partly or not at all. Having more than one project in the works at any given time is a good way to generate new ideas, although it does mean everything tends to take a bit longer than it could–but patience does temper the cutting edge, and we need more than one edge to make our measure of things.
Systems-based art for me has proven a rich area of exploration, and although I would like to say it is an honest way to produce work, when left to its own devices, such practice can self-reduce into a sterile and hermetic formalism. Why not look at systems which have attempted to extend beyond their internal logic, and reference the world as we try to understand it? With the full knowledge that any model of ‘representation’ has limts and aspects that are inherently flawed, I have been working with what I call Paracartography for several years. This encompasses my own kind of distended or extended mapmaking of the world (always in a global or multiple-world format), and calendar systems (mostly based on the solar year) as patterns and dice. I also work with language games (anagrams) and other number games, with a special interest in that many-splendored number which has inspired the demonic imagination in history and popular culture, the number 666. My work continues develop in all these areas, and has taken the form of books, prints, paintings and objects, and now also this website.
So, with the generous support of the Canada Council (for the Arts), I have put my portfolio online, with some new animations created for this website. The explanations for my work get a bit technical at times, but there is unfortunately no other way to explain some aspects of the designs! I will update these pages as new work is created.
