Transmissions: Art for Eclipse 2024
2024.4.6



Transmissions, a pop-up exhibition hosted by ecoartspace in honor of the April 8, 2024 eclipse occurred in Austin, Texas today. Two of my pieces from the Down to Earth series were included: Elegy for Planet Earth (11:16 video with soundscape), and 11x17 inkjet print of a new collage titled Down To Earth: Sea Sponges.


The famed 1972 “Blue Marble” photograph of Planet Earth viewed from space captured by the Apollo 17 crew offered a breathtaking perspective on our miraculously life-supporting—and ultimately miniscule—shared home. At the same time, it heralded an age in which humans were no longer inextricably bound to Earth. Leaving suddenly became a viable—even, for some,desirable—possibility. The farthest reaches of the universe were suddenly open to study and exploration, as well as extraction and colonization.


Fifty years hence, billionaires are pushing luxury rocket rides and claiming that, upon the collapse of terrestrial ecosystems (hastened by the actions/enterprises of said billionaires), colonies on the Moon or Mars are the next frontier.


My ongoing Down to Earth series suggests a different vantage point. Small collages made from vintage imagery with the addition of Earth from space are odes to the inner reaches of the place we already are.

The new collage for Transmissions features sea sponges. The illustration by Else Bostelmann (1882-1961) is from page 324 of The Book of Fishes published in 1939 by the National Geographic Society. Sponges have recently been used in research indicating that rising global temperatures correspond directly with industrialization over the past 300 years.

The Visible, The Invisible, The Indivisible
2024.1.26

In 2012 I wrote an article for the Science/Art issue of The Center for Sustainable Practice in the Arts (CSPA) quarterly magazine suggesting that lessons from sailing can be applied in altering the course of a society on a destructive trajectory.


The Visible, The Invisible, The Indivisible was selected for republicaiton in CSPA's 2023 Reprints | Reflections | Readings issue, along with this new collage based on a diagram commonly used in teaching sailing (Points of Sail Diagram, collage mounted on birch panel, 12x12, 2023).


It is an honor to have my work included in this important archive of practices, process, and ideas relevant to the times at hand.

Writing on Art for Hyperallergic
2023.2.27



I've recently written three reviews on exhibitions currently on view in Marfa, TX for Hyperallergic:


Refreshing Abstraction, Vision Pool at Eugene Binder in Marfa, TX


Art Between Land and Self, Ecstatic Land at Ballroom Marfa


Kenneth Tam Excavates the History of Chinese Labor in the American West, Tender is the Hand that Holds the Stone of Memory at Ballroom Marfa





"All Blues - Chromatic Analysis" in Fragmentary Blue opening May 15
2022.4.28

Please see my blog for more information about All Blues - Chromatic Analysis.

Tonal Relativity: Studies at the Center for New Music
2021.4.12

The Tonal Relativity Studies are on view at the Center for New Music in San Francisco from March 1, 2021 through April 30, 2021. These works are diagrams of musical intervals and sets of intervallic patterns for the purposes of contemplation and exploration. A musical scale employing twelve equally-spaced tones is represented by a spectrum of 12 equally-spaced colors. The original pieces, mapped out in gouache on paper during the 2020 pandemic lockdown, were made into prints for this exhibition. More info on the project here.

Radical Reimaginings
2020.8.23

Radical Reimaginings is a virtual exhibition curated by 516 ARTS and the Kolaj Institute. On view from August 22 through December 31, 2020.


My exhibition statement:


I want to reimagine the potential of the imaginary. To imagine is the first step toward realization—what once seemed impossible can begin to take form in the mind’s eye (or ear as the case may be). Collage can function as a lens through which the marvelous underpinnings of the commonplace are revealed. It can serve as a map or guide, a catalyst, prescription or elixir for maker and viewer alike.


More thoughts on this work at the Obviousblog.


An Intricate Ensemble
2020.3.5

My master's thesis for Rhode Island School of Design's brand new Nature-Culture-Sustainability Studies program is now available in print form RISD's Fleet Library, and as a free download from RISD Digital Commons:


An Intricate Ensemble: The Art-Science of an Ecological Imaginary for the Anthropocene Epoch


The upshot in a nutshell: practices and frameworks that emphasize and enhance collaboration, spontaneity, and care, in defying convention, contain the potential to subvert it.


The impossible can be realized through creative acts: we can "know what the possible feels like because we know ourselves to be its creators" (Arturo Fallico, Art and Existentialism, 1962).


This is a dynamic, participatory occasion.

RISD NCSS MA Program
2020.2.7

On December 9, 2019 I defended my thesis as part of the first cohort in Rhode Island School of Design's new liberal arts master's program in Nature-Culture and Sustainability Studies. "An Intricate Ensemble: The Art-Science of an Ecological Imaginary" is  now available in its entirety at RISD Digital Commons.