This piece is the first one I created in my “Unprepared Eye” series, and it has ended up being one of my favorites. I’ve since made several new drawings that occupy a similar mind-space, but at the time in which it was created it was quite an outlier.
I began with a vision of an arid almost colorless landscape with memories of Ursula K. Leguin’s The Dispossessed, Stephen King’s The Dark Tower series and my love of the dry golden expanse of the Altamont Pass in the summer.
The visual device of a “lattice,” or an interlocking form with myriad negative spaces in which to peer through, has always fascinated me. When composing a landscape, I love to imagine the expansiveness, and the depth; but I also relish the look of a partially-obstructed view into an expanse.
A floating, dangling network of neon-outlined eyebrows lightly strung together by a blue thread.
Does this lattice help the rocks to float? Is the lattice lighter than air, or propelled into it? By its very name, it denies gravity. As a form, does it refuse to believe in gravity?
When I create categories for my work in my head, I think about the worlds I’ve created that seem to be devoid of gravity (totally floating gaseous realms) and the ones with a clear ground plane that tethers its protrusions. What I love about this piece, is that it fits both categories…and perhaps creates a third one…a realm where multiple realities are colliding.
That’s one of my favorite realms to be in, by the way.