Statement
The works in in/visible are about repetition and endurance; visibility and invisibility. They arise from my practice of picking up beach debris from beaches – an action that involves repeatedly bending over and reaching down to pick up. Doing this one action over and over – and then returning to the beach another day to do it again.
I wanted to make that repetitive, sustained movement visible. So, I translated it into drawings and mono-prints composed of lines, dots and circles, using everyday materials such as discarded paper and wood, cotton thread and chalk. Each finished piece required repeating specific actions such as drawing a line in chalk, sewing a stitch, pressing down an ink-stained stamp or dragging a stick through sand hundreds of times.
This repetition simplifies and intensifies the act of doing or making. It creates an active aesthetic experience, a heightened awareness of my physical self as I interact with my surroundings. Picking up beach debris, I smell seaweed and feel the bite of salt on skin. As chalk builds upon wood, the resistance decreases even as my arm tires. And, even as earlier marks are sometimes obscured by others laid on top, the result resembles a language or counting system – a visible history of the action that created them.