Artist Statement
I use photography and its inherent processes (photo chemistry, dark room trickery, photographic prints) as raw materials that can be used to construct images, employing a sculptural approach. Rather than operating as just an image, the photograph can act instead like a frame inside which a new narrative may be inserted.

I challenge the conditions under which it is possible to make art. For example, while working as a carpenter in Washington State, I surreptitiously photographed condominium interiors with disposable cameras. The resultant images are alternately funny, sad, and depressing. It is portraiture with the subjects removed. As such, the project offered me a close examination of how people manage their identities, and insight into the inadequate spheres of influence that propel popular culture and consumer decisions. The units act as a framework within which representation occurs. I was invited into these homes as a worker, not an artist, and it was important for me to breach that contract. I made work while ostensibly working for the boss, extracting the surplus value of an ordinary situation and giving a voice to the worker.

I am interested in images without hierarchy, and in showing the hand of the artist as well as elegant digital manipulations. This anti-hierarchical approach extends to equipment and circumstance as well; the abject and the estimable. My position is complex: I embrace both the critical and the romantic role of the artist.

There is no dominant tactic for carrying out my investigations. I do not wish to present a documentation or archive, but rather a rupture in the way we look at issues of culture and representation. I introduce fiction as a way of questioning purported truths in photographic imagery. This fiction, or contamination, may take the form of a cut and a reassembly, or a chemical adjustment. It serves to activate humor, absurdity, critique, and above all, reflection. Additionally, it allows me to transpose the identities of individuals by removing them, or their belongings, from one location and placing them in another. The cuts/adjustments are not made in a realistic way, nor are they made in every photograph. Rather, I want the viewer to be able to pick out the moves and follow the system of operations that happen between the images for him/herself. My intention is to trigger the group of images as a whole and to continue an ongoing conversation about culture, hegemony, and identity.