In my artwork I explore various definitions of nature and natural history, how these have functioned over time, and the disparity that can exist between them. In doing so, I aim to create an individual vision of nature that scrutinizes these various meanings. The tension that arises from conflating incongruous notions of nature—a mechanistic as well as a romantic, idealized concept—is a guiding principle for my artistic project. I agree with Robert Smithson’s appraisal of the Romanticist concept of nature as “simply another 18th-19th century fiction”; however, I am simultaneously sympathetic to the transcendentalism of Henry David Thoreau and other naturalist poets. I construct a personal, hand-made version of natural history. This involves assuming a naturalist's stance and acting as a natural historian myself. Collecting specimens plays an important role in my artistic practice since an isolated object necessarily becomes tempered and re-contextualized. In the studio I am able to exert complete control over objects, much like a scientist functions in a laboratory. Objects are drawn, photographed, magnified, preserved, cataloged, documented, and otherwise manipulated. The studio allows me to draw natural objects divorced from nature. Removed from the original context, the categorization of these objects as ‘natural’ becomes distorted. (2010)

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