My latest series of paintings is called Topography of Ooze and continues with the same themes I explored in Mapping Etcetera. The show opened on May 3rd at Loop Gallery in Toronto (visit the Loop website for more details) and runs until May 25th. 

Mapping Etcetera: the map is the territory

For the past few years I have been working with abstract and semi-abstract imagery. The first group of paintings was called Terra Incognita and was based loosely on maps and map-making. While artists like Landon MacKenzie, Nancy Graves and Claude Breeze have used the map motif in their work, my modus operandi was to apply the map-making matrix to psychonautical space. A second batch of paintings was exhibited under the title Terra Incognita: Further Adventures of an Agoraphobic Cartographer.

While my paintings are rooted in the imagery of maps they are useless if used to orient oneself in the physical world. These maps, paradoxically, become the territory to be explored and traveled. In my research for this project I have discovered a whole world of imaginary and mythological maps. While all forms of mapping, including genome mapping, deep mapping and mythological map-making inform my work, these paintings refuse to be mere cartographic representations of landscape. They must be entered and traversed to be understood.

In the later paintings, the mapping matrix has faded into the background, with organic and cell like characters rising and falling in a dance of creation and destruction.

My most recent exhibit, Mapping Etcetera also featured soundscapes/music. The soundscapes accompanying these paintings combine guitar, found sound, electronic and electro-acoustic improvised music. These soundscapes developed in the same way the paintings did, with layers of sound and music coagulating and evolving over time.