My submission for ENVISION: THE MICHIGAN ARTIST INITIATIVE

Organized by Stamps Gallery at the University of Michigan, Envision: The Michigan Artist Initiative is an exhibition and awards program designed to support the development of contemporary artists living and working in Michigan. In its second year of the program. Envision recognizes the creativity, rigor, and innovation of Michigan-based artists and collaboratives — and honors their role in inspiring the next generations of artists in our state. This initiative showcases the excellence and artistic merit of contemporary art practices in Michigan.  

Stamps Gallery invites emerging and mid-career contemporary artists from Michigan working in all types of media to apply.  A shortlist of 3 artists will be selected by a prominent national panel of jurors: Neil A. Barclay, President & CEO of Charles Wright Museum of African American Art,  Shannon Rae Stratton, Executive Director of Ox-Bow School of Art and Artists' Residency, and Nayda Collazo-Llorensaward-winning artist and winner of the inaugural Envision: Michigan Artist Initiative Award (2020-2021).

Statement

The images I am submitting are mainly from two series: The Sublime, and, The Reality Project.

We hold the idea alien life forms, or their creations, will arrive in some type of ship. Maybe it is more likely quantum physics will play a part--they, or it, will step through a portal in space. Because we only have science fiction to rely upon, I cannot "know" how to describe first contact without creating a bias. I am also aware that the scenario is usually presented with coefficients of anxiety or terror.

In The Reality Project, I was thinking of the triple-chambered image as a point of intersection where realities met and were projected. I was thinking about perception, the possibility that everything is being played out in slightly different variations beyond some imperceptible gap we have not figured out how to cross, the deterioration of our ability to trust our senses, the manipulation and domination of data. This reflects the times we are living in. After a few iterations of the image, I thought of them as engines or generators of reality. And then a friend texted that the images reminded her of angels.

So it will not be them but their cyborgs. Maybe a form of biomorphic, bionic AI. (Biological bodies are not fit for space travel.) Or, if it is them, it will be because of a wormhole. A portal will open and they will fill the sky as our timelines collide.

In a dangerous time when powerful people are trying to erode and dismantle the scaffolds of real science, I believe my work is a cry in support of the sciences, and not just a preoccupation of what the future might hold. As an exhibiting artist since 2000, my work has found its way into many personal collections. Recently, I have had the pleasure to exhibit in places such as the Detroit Center for Design and Technology and the Michigan State University Residential College in the Arts and Humanities.