The Giverny Series is comprised of 8 individual prints that were performed with a scanner over a week-long camping trip on a lily pond in South Bend, Indiana. Each is 50 x 100 cm in editions of 10, and printed on watercolor paper.
For my ongoing series of Compressionist prints, I strap a desktop scanner, laptop and custom-made battery pack to my body, and perform images into existence. I might scan in straight, long lines across tables, tie the scanner around my neck and swing over flowers, do pogo-like gestures over bricks, or just follow the wind over water lilies in a pond. The dynamism between my body, technology and the landscape is transformed into beautiful and quirky renderings, which are then produced as archival art objects. Compressionism follows the trajectory of Impressionist painting, through Surrealism to Postmodernism, but rather than citing crises of representation, reality or simulation, my focus is on performing all three in relation to each other.
The Giverny Series premiered as part of Giverny of the Midwest, a solo exhibition at Gallery AOP in Johannesburg, South Africa in late July 2011. All work on show resulted from the aforementioned “art camping trip” in South Bend, Indiana. Also part of the exhibition: Giverny of the Midwest, a 2 x 12 meter installation comprised of 93 individual prints (edition 3, 2011), and In the fold, an artist book (forthcoming).