A Kind of Souvenir
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I have always been fixated on how nature and wilderness intersect with contemporary culture. Human beings are of the Earth, we are mammals derived from nature; yet we are so far removed from it. Nature is that wild thing that’s so hard to define. Today it is innately considered to be separate from us, separate from the culture we’ve amassed, separate from our day to day lived experiences. It is something outside of human control, simultaneously precious and dangerous, beautiful and frightening. We fill our apartments with exotic plants, we mount landscape paintings on our walls, we take weekend drives to the mountains, to the lake, to the forest, to the beach, and post our experiences on social media. This is how we attempt to remain connected to the natural !4 of !25 landscape. The broad scope of my practice revolves around this distance, both physical and psychological; how nature creeps into our lives, and how we in turn influence what is perceived as natural place.