North Dakota State Maps, 2012–2014

The North Dakota State Maps series began as a reconsideration of familiar territory. The first images in the series, completed in the summer of 2012, combined pen, graphite, and other drawing materials on paper to create fields of linked text in the shape of a state I longed to return to, North Dakota. After becoming an artist-in-residence at North Dakota State University in Fargo in late 2013, I eagerly continued the drawings, now with the addition of screenprinting to provide a base of solid color to draw and write upon. Working within the confines of this rigid, rectungular shape, meandering thoughts and lists of terminology serve to reconstruct notions of North Dakotan culture. Representational images drawn into these maplike compositions refer to regional geography, history, and exchanges; placed on trompe l'oeil slips of paper, they remind us that all maps are constructed out of illusion.