For much of my career I have used the conceptual space of maps, extensive research, and a painter’s vocabulary, to abstractly visualize information about historic and contemporary topics that are relevant to our time. I combine media including painting, collage, drawing, and printmaking to make works that vary in size from the diminutive dimensions of a child’s atlas to paintings over fourteen feet wide. Rather than using the concise and analytical languages of data visualization and cartography, I am interested in exploring subjects and information employing a more charged and expressive visual vocabulary, one that is more likely to evoke an emotional or visceral response.

My working process often begins with a question about something I do not know the answer to, and is followed by research focused on looking for answers. Eventually I begin making art as a means to find ways to represent this visually. My process is partly analytical and partly intuitive, for both the research and artmaking. Over the years, a wide range of artists have informed the development of my work and process; the relationship of it to the history of abstraction and conceptual art practices is an inextricable part of my work.

I begin with research on the subject, taking notes and making visual notations and sketches in notebooks, then give this visual form on atlases pages, works on paper, and paintings. One series, Chronicle (Colonizing the World Since 1400) (2021-), began when thinking about the extent colonization has been so widespread for much of human history. I had investigated the subject piecemeal in other series but wanted to understand it more comprehensively. The research portion would be monumental, encompassing the history of colonialism over many centuries globally. It required setting art making aside for a year to read, take extensive notes, make visual notations, and begin to explore visualizing the subject. This led to an ongoing body of work that currently includes eight large paintings, over two dozen works on paper, numerous notebooks and sketchbooks.

I started incorporating maps into my work in the early 1990s while thinking about the upcoming quincentennial of what was euphemistically referred to as “The First Encounter.” Since then, I have focused on many topical subjects. These and the names of series include: colonialism, Chronicle (Colonizing Since 1400) and Contest; wars and displacement, Current Wars and Conflicts; imperialism, US Future States Atlas; land claims, Magallanica (a series on Antarctica); colonialism and indigenous cultures, What’s in a Name? and Amazon Region; and inequities of fulfilling the American dream, Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.