Systems Art - Artist Statement  

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I investigate the relationship between human systems and the environments they shape, exploit, depend upon, and ultimately mirror back onto themselves.

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My work explores the intersection of systems engineering, intelligence analysis, environmental observation, and lived human experience. Through painting, research, photography, writing, and long-form observation, I examine how power operates across systems including ecological, psychological, political, and cultural identities.

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The Cofan Project was developed through field research investigating the long-term consequences of oil extraction in the Ecuadorian Amazon and the resilience of the Cofán people despite decades of environmental devastation. Instead of documenting only the catastrophic outcomes, I also observed how picularly similar their culture and systems are to the modern western world through immense adaptation, memory, survival, and the invisible structures that persist long after destruction and discourse.

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My process is investigative and immersive. I approach art beyond just isolated image making. I reach for the root of systems principles by tracing the relationships between people, institutions, resources, figures, belief systems, and the natural world. Influenced by my various experiences spanning military service, expeditionary environments, fitness, scientific training, and field observation, I am interested in the tension between control and vulnerability, technological progress and human consequence, abstraction and embodiment.  I view art as a mechanism for slowing perception and discovering the true script behind the scenes we all display on the stage of life. 

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In a culture optimized for speed, simplification, and consumption, my work attempts to create spaces where complexity can stay intact just long enough to be meaningfully observed. The goal is not to judge or provide conclusions on these observations, but to increase sensitivity and awareness to the structures that quietly shape human behavior and collective reality.  Through layered visual language and research driven practice, I aim to create work that functions simultaneously as artifact, investigation, and psychological behavior to better understand the human condition and the environments we create to foster it. 

 

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BROWN UNIVERSITY:  Bachelor of Art in Visual Art

 

 Photography Internship: Brown University - Senior Capstone Project

              Field Work:  Amazon Jungle, Ecuador, South America, Summer 2017

                                         Photographed an Amazonian Indigenous Community - "The Cofan"

     ​​                                    Link:  Photography Website

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 NASA Studio - Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), Visiting Student

      Design for Extreme Environments - Mars Habitat

 

​ Brown University - Visual Art Studios - Selected for the Honors Program

      Painting I and Painting II (Advanced):

               Sold Two Paintings to Brown University

                        One to the Exclusive Art Exhibition and One to the Computer Science Department

                                        "Celestial Bouquet" Oil and Acrylic on Canvas (3' x 4') - EAE

                                        "Around the Kitchen" Acrylic on Canvas (3' x 3') - CSD

      Sculpture

      Drawing