Artist Statement | The Box Maker

How do we perceive and make sense of what we see in the world around us? Philosophers and scientists have been trying to answer this question for centuries. My own interest in these ideas began in childhood and ultimately led to a career in Usability/Information Architecture, an interdisciplinary field whose purpose is to design systems that harmonize with how our minds work. One quality that has captured my imagination is that our minds are pattern-seeking, categorizing machines. Equally fascinating are the dynamic and consequential effects of our attention — as we focus, some things sharpen and other things necessarily blur away. While these mechanisms help us manage a world filled with stimulus, they can also lead to oversimplifications that leave us blind to other things. How we focus literally creates our reality.

THE BOX MAKER series represents my exploration into some of these inner workings. I am particularly intrigued by the force our pattern-making mechanism exerts on the external world, creating boundaries and labels wherever we look — be they literal or symbolic. In this series, I use boxes as a metaphor for this process. While the imagery is largely rooted in the representational world, it is also constructed. I have altered the imagery during both capture and post-production to suggest an interior experience of landscape — perhaps recalled through the lens of the subconscious, emotion or memory. This coupled with the box framework is meant to create a kind of visual intersection between the analytical and mysterious aspects of cognition. I invite the viewer to consider the ever-present and constructed nature of boxes and the potential power of their malleability.