Artist’s Statement-

The universe is made of infinitesimally tiny things—protons, neutrons, and electrons—that operate under rules of engagement we’ve not yet fully understood. Rules of coherence and decoherence, superposition and entanglement; constructive and deconstructive interference. It’s composed of particles that behave like waves and long-distance, inexplicable ‘spookiness’ between qubits.

As the pandemic began, the world we could safely engage with became smaller but no less fascinating.  Inspired by my readings about the quantum universe surrounding us and equipped with a hand-held digital microscope I began collecting images of all that was available to me. I found that the humble sand and dirt we walked on looked like tiny jewels with colors I never dreamed possible; decaying leaves and flower petals were gorgeously colorful, elaborately textured, amazing temples of life to come; rotting logs and decaying blossoms were family homes. This modest tool showed me there was an entire level of the world I had been unaware existed. 

With this new visual knowledge, I found my perspective began to change. My question became, if we could now view the world differently; aware of the tiny and the mundane that surround us, how would that change in visual information and understanding alter our perspective of our place in the natural world?

My work stands apart from the usual depictions of the landscape. Where these images serve to encapsulate the enormity of the natural environment and the effects of atmosphere and light, bringing the grand to human scale, my work does the opposite. I actively seek the everyday, tiny magic of the natural world, both living and non-living. Using a digital microscope allows me to photograph what I find either singly (in spontaneous, ‘candid’ shots) or carefully and methodically, in very small parts to collect enough visual data to allow me to bring it to ‘stitch’ the images digitally and bring the aggregate to human-scale, or larger.

In doing so, these images serve to engage the viewer in a new and unanticipated way. They require the viewer to see and know, and then to re-consider the relationship of human beings to the natural world. Collections of insects photographed during the course of their daily lives become individuals and families foraging for subsistence, fungi growing on decaying plant material create delicate, luminous threads of mycelium engaged in releasing nutrients while creating nurseries for new lives to develop.

The natural colors and geometries of cells, sand, fungi, plants, and small animals are made beautifully engaging the viewer in the very patterns of the living planet we share. Just as we tend to resonate with the geometric ratio known as phi or the Golden Mean because this is the underlying organization of our world, so too do we engage with these patterns, textures, and colors recognizing them, as part of the network of life that we all share rather than resources to acquire and exploit.