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 and events. I combine media including painting, collage, drawing, and printmaking to make works that vary in size from the diminutive dimensions of a children’s atlas page to paintings over fourteen feet wide. Rather than using the concise and analytical languages of data visualization and cartography, I explore subjects and information employing a charged and expressive visual vocabulary that is more likely to evoke an emotional and visceral response.

A series often begins with a question followed by research seeking answers, then I begin making art as a means to explore ways to represent this visually. One series began with recognizing the deep sorrow I felt when thinking about how much war and conflict there is in the world, and the realization that I had no idea how much there actually was. I began to research layer upon layer of information on this grim subject, with each discovery leading to more related topics and data. I then began exploring ways to visualize this complex subject in notebooks and atlases, eventually leading to creating Current Wars and Conflicts, a series of dozens of works including paintings, drawings, atlases and prints.

I began to incorporate 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.