Uncertainty and Apperception

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Artist Statement

Apperception describes the act of mental recognition when the mind invokes the known as a response to confrontation with the unknown, the new. Byproducts of my process often distract me. These unintended consequences foster an experience of apperception; they elicit curiosity and present opportunities for discovery that motivate me as an artist and a maker. Incidental forms conjure things I have seen before: biological and geological formations, body, landscape, rivulets of rain on a window, the mundane detritus of everyday life. “What is this like,” accompanies a host of related questions: What does it mean? What is it for? How did it happen? I feel compelled to articulate meaning, to determine purpose, to analyze and understand.

Yet, I am wary of these distillations. A brief pause precedes the moment when the mind steps in for dissection, to make sense of the unvoiced response. There is something in this moment of inarticulate attraction that eludes all attempts at explanation. With my current work, I avoid explicit meaning and upset the possibility of total resolution. In doing so, I continually move between apperceptive recognition and uncertain curiosity, returning to the state of not knowing experienced in the initial encounter.