The work was made at a time of personal loss, when my awareness of what is present, absent, newly discovered—or lost forever—was greatly magnified. The experience was one of disjunction in time and space, heightened by what was happening simultaneously in the world around us and bringing to mind larger questions about life and death. The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic—with the deaths of so many and the loss of social and economic certainties—brought about a collective sense of grief. Meanwhile, climate change loomed as an existential threat; drought in the western United States caused devastating fires that ripped through communities and destroyed entire forests. In fire season, the air was thick with smoke, and ash fell from the sky like snowflakes. Personal, social, and collective losses imbued the present moment with uncertainty and tragedy.
The work demanded that I navigate this difficult terrain, channeling personal loss and collective dislocation into the creative process. The source imagery for the show came from my living spaces, local surroundings, and special places. With a shifted sense of reality, they felt foreign and needed to be understood differently. Familiar spaces moved through physical and digital processes—drawing, digital compositing, and 3D simulation—and were deconstructed and recombined into new configurations. Abstracted visual elements formed imagined spaces, maps, constructions, and sculptures that exist between physical and digital realms: digital drawings, videos, augmented-reality sculptures, and a virtual environment.
Augmented reality app developed by Mathieu Cardinal.
Archival Digital Print, 40” x 39”, edition of 5
The show’s title, Elsewhere, alludes to the different modalities in which the work was intended to be experienced: the drawings exist as digital images and large physical prints; the augmented-reality works exist virtually, but within the viewer’s physical space through the screen of their camera; and the virtual gallery is a manifestation of the work in a physically impossible space.
Augmented Reality image targets and videos
Augmented Reality image target
Augmented Reality image target
Augmented Reality image target
Archival Digital Print, 38” x 40”, edition of 5
The work that began with loss became a process of constructing a new visual language—one that responds to changing perceptions of human experience through the movement between physical and digital forms.
Archival Digital Print, 30” x 18.5”, edition of 5
Archival Digital Print, 30” x 22”, edition of 5
Archival Digital Print, 84” x 30”, edition of 5
Archival Digital Print, 38” x 38”, edition of 5
Elsewhere Virtual Gallery, 2021
Web GL, dimensions variable
Hit the “escape” key to exit the virtual gallery.