Flowers are some of nature's most ephemeral creations. The majority of their lives is characterized by states of developing or wilting, rather than the extreme vibrancy for which they are best known. Like many people, especially those who achieve fame or notoriety, they are defined by a brief interlude of brilliance that is an unrepresentative slice of their time on earth. The duality of defining a plant by a moment of its life versus its entire life-cycle fascinates me. Through my art, I explore the concept of the life cycle and how it is defined.
My current body of work consists of a series of constructed spaces that explore the themes of life and death by studying the concept of the botanical life cycle. Through this, I am attempting to connect the universal struggles of humanity with those of the organisms in small, created ecosystems. I am particularly interested in the idea of growth as it relates to the inner subculture of the ecosystem. I believe that this reflects the concepts of evolution, competition, and survival. My depictions of growth also seek to explore the secrets of these ecosystems, as natural systems are often best observed where they may be least noticed in nature.
My fascination with created ecosystems stems from my childhood experiences with agriculture. Growing up in a crop-producing community, the continual repetition of planting, sprouting, growth, and death were continually infused into my consciousness. I am intrigued by the idea of using art to capture moments in the continual change that characterizes this cycle. Each of my paintings describes a hypothetical moment in the life of an ecosystem that describes the eternal change these systems undergo.
I cultivate a garden to keep this cycle active in my thoughts as I produce my paintings. The acts of choosing which plants to grow as well as tending to them are central to my artistic process. I sense that in both nature and art, I decide which set of species will propagate in the world. This has led me to the concept that cultivated plants are our evolutionary partners. Those that we have come to value are those allowed to thrive. They provide us with food and sustenance or a depth of feeling and thought, and in exchange we spread them to new territory. We make them stronger. We nurture them, we care for them, and we appreciate them.
I sense an inherent difficulty in defining flowers as critical objects in our society. Our culture has deemed flowers to be little more than trite objects of beauty, more fit for a sweetheart than for contemplation. But I believe that their transitory nature is quite reflective of our lives and modern cultural values. Beyond a casual aesthetic appreciation for the subject, I understand the complexity of the life cycle at work in each bloom.