About

In my work I strive to shed light on the overlooked or discarded; those items or places that are forgotten or slightly out of focus in the background. By highlighting their existence or reconfiguring them into something unique I hope to breathe new life into these neglected images and objects. The majority of my artistic practice recently has centered on collage, book art, and assemblage. I endeavor to prolong the life of these outdated how-to manuals, old magazines, snap shots, slide film, and any other materials I‘m able to cut up and reassemble. This is also a challenge since I force myself to create something visually interesting or confusing out of what can at times be banal source material. This is what truly excites me when I work. Sitting down with old liquor advertisements or an outdated interior design magazine and experimenting with the images in an attempt to push the limitations of the source material I’m using.

With my collage work I tend to produce series, developing a collection of works that either come from similar source imagery, focus on a particular theme, or are limited by a number of self-imposed restrictions. I enjoy pushing the assumptions of what the medium of collage is with an attempt to create a more painterly or fine art look from just hand cut paper and archival adhesives. In some of these pieces it is important to know the source material, such as my abstracted collages made out of the backgrounds from mail order catalogs after the models and items for sale have been removed. I hope that my work can be viewed both aesthetically and conceptually.

I view my carved book pieces as found sculptures that I just assist in revealing by excavating the excess text leaving only selected imagery where it was originally printed. The books I choose tend to be old manuals, reference books, and guides which are now destined for the landfill in our digital age. Although their advice and instructions might be antiquated their illustrations can still be appreciated aesthetically. I seal the textblock closed so that only the cover opens which makes it easy to display the work and to store it on a shelf with the rest of a readable library. I enjoy retaining the utilitarian nature of these books, highlighting their continued physical existence as a book and not just a visual work on a wall.

I was born in York, Pennsylvania and now reside in Minneapolis, Minnesota. I attended Tyler School of Art graduating with a BFA in Sculpture and a minor in Art History. I was a founding member of the Twin Cities Collage Collective and a member of the weekly instagram group The Collage Club. I’ve been posting a new work daily on instagram since the summer of 2018.

 Instagram: @biblioexcavations

Click here to view my complete Art CV