Constructed Landscapes
2019
Exhibited at the National Art School BFA show.
Monday Landscape, 2018, digital collage, 0:35 loop
Wind Study, 2018, digital collage, 0:57 loop
‘Constructed Landscapes’ is a series of landscapes, collaged both digitally and manually, using both found footage and my own images.
The digital videos in this series, like Wind Study and Monday Landscape, are non-linear, non-narrative videos, and played as infinite loops. As a fragment of a landscape suspended in time, the works are read nearly as stills, which pushes them more closely to a collage in a traditional sense. Both videos are constructed from about 15 layers of found footage, each which have been individually rotoscoped and stitched together. The intention of using found material — publicly accessible archives, domains, stock footage subscription websites — is both having access to more but also being limited by what I can find. I had to relinquish some of my control to the parameters which I have created for this body of work. It is this essential quality of collage which has continued as my practice has evolved from drawing, cutting, and pasting on paper to the same in a digital form.
This series of constructed landscapes began with an interest in artificiality, place, and dislocation. I use collage to create non-spaces which allude to real spaces but are ultimately artificial, and exist in no particular time or place. As someone who has grown up in different countries and having a mixed background, I am drawn to the idea of creating a new type landscape; one that is constructed from various places, both personal and public.