We Were Here (2018-ongoing)
We Were Here is an organic outgrowth of the experimental work The Terrestrial. These pictures came from a desire to further abstract the visual record of the landscape by using the aesthetic of quick marks inherent to diaristic writing and sketching.
In the field, I compile a broad collection of images from each location and digitally collage them together using a series of algorithms, digital brush work, and finally, textual markings rendered digitally. The markings, rendered quickly, repetitively, and sometimes even flippantly channel the history of the scene depicted by taking cues from narratives that include industrial pollution, the agricultural ruination of biodiverse ecosystems, colonial violence and more. The narratives I use as reference are never legible in the work, but the appearance of the text, glyphs and marks reveal that the landscape could be deciphered in any number of ways beyond their initial beauty. The images, large abstract prints consisting entirely of original recorded imagery, speak to a partial truth of a place.