A Library of Touching

A Library of Woods

A Library of Flowers

Library Studies, 2021. While other recent projects have focused on the mapping of language and geo-political boundaries, assorted works from the past two years have felt like an unraveling of that desire to meticulously organize text and space. Around the onset of the pandemic, I began spending an increasing amount of time wandering the woods along the river through Fargo, ND. In this sudden state of isolation, communicating with the river, its urban wildlife, and the traces left behind by other people have now become strangely sentimental. Back inside, I eventually began to sketch these routes as an act of mapping by memory, using graphite on cheap paper while in total darkness. Dizzied by the overwhelming amount of news this year, I generally find these individual sketches and blind line drawings disjointed and incomplete, but in the spring of 2021 I began to screenprint bold colors on top of those accumulated drawings as a means to unify them. By pinning these ephemeral drawings, prints, and collected found objects to the gallery wall, I am addressing each part with both tenderness and objective resolve. The installations, sprawling out like streams or news feeds, offer endless trajectories and resting points for the viewer.