I am fascinated by visual culture—both the pictures that we make and the technologies we use for capturing or viewing images. I have made bodies of work using antiquated optical devices from the 1800s and emerging technologies, including microfiche machines, handheld 3D viewers, lenticular images, 3D models, photogrammetry, augmented reality (AR), and artificial intelligence (AI). I am interested in making art that encourages others to immerse themselves in seeing.
I refer to this way of looking “making the familiar strange” and it is one of my favorite assignments that I teach to students. By concentrating on vision, even the most mundane objects can seem foreign, as if seen for the first time. This intense focus induces a shift in consciousness akin to meditation, making beauty perceptible. I make art that calls attention to the very act of looking to offer a pathway for others to find beauty in the everyday.
Can this type of absorption be both a means of seeing beauty and a subtle political act? As Robin Wall Kimmerer states in her book Braiding Sweet Grass, “Gratitude [mindfulness] doesn’t send you out shopping to find satisfaction; it comes as a gift rather than a commodity, subverting the foundation of the whole economy.” If being truly mindful of our vision can induce an exalted state, perhaps we can find gratification without consumption or extraction.
I earned my Master of Fine Arts degree in Photography from the University of New Mexico, and I hold a BA in cultural anthropology from Bates College. I have exhibited my work throughout the U.S., including Galleri Urbane in Marfa, Texas; RISD in Providence, Rhode Island; Tamarind Institute and the Albuquerque Art Museum in Albuquerque; and Form and Function Gallery and Currents International New Media Festival in Santa Fe, NM. I have taught art at high schools, colleges, and universities throughout California, New Mexico, and Massachusetts including Trinity University, U.C. Berkeley Extension, College of Santa Fe; the University of New Mexico, and Montserrat College of Art.
From 2011 through 2018, I developed and led the digital art curriculum at New Mexico School for the Arts. Since returning to Boston, I have taught Digital Imaging at Montserrat College of Art in Beverly, and Climate Change and the Arts to graduate students at Emerson College. My ongoing projects involve creating curricula that allow students to express climate anxiety through art, and how to promote positive change.
Kimmerer, Robin Wall. 2015. Braiding Sweetgrass. Minneapolis, MN: Milkweed Editions, p. 111.
