IDENTITY MAPS (2018)
Fingerprints are miniature maps that suggest clues to a person’s unique character. This mixed media series uses fingerprint imagery to explore themes of self-knowledge, intimacy and identity. Working with impressions of my own fingertips and those of family members, this imagery transformed into personal topographies, enlarged to reveal complex networks of forms and patterns. They become galaxies, cityscapes or landscapes to be explored.
Interior Astronomy, a multi-panel installation of suspended vellum sheets, was inspired by the Chilean documentary Nostalgia for the Light, which contrasts the deep space research of scientists working at observatories in the Atacama Desert with Pinochet regime survivors patiently comb the desert soil for evidence of lost loved ones. Each layer reveals more information, culminating in the final deep red image. The fluid, unstable nature of identity is suggested by the gentle fluctuations in the vellum banners.
New Territory, a 4-panel sculptural collage, creates a literal topography a 3-dimensional landscape of the self.
Terra Incognita uses texture and contrast to create barely visible pathways in a dark landscape.