MONUMENT

Monument is an ongoing series of on-location work that explores time, weather, and change and constancy through the lens of a consistent landscape motif: a foundation of sagebrush, a strand of juniper and piñon, a zig-zagging gorge, a horizon of hills, and then sky reaching upward.

Work in the series is made at a roadside Rio Grande Gorge overlook on the edge of the Rio Grande Del Norte National Monument in northern New Mexico. Returning repeatedly to the overlook has led to more than thirty paintings thus far, and started unpacking a story that stretches across the entire series: one of weather and mood through seasons and years, of the simultaneity of time in grand scales and small, and of our place in the landscape’s unending and dynamic unfolding.

Monuments in the landscape, whether legislatively defined or spiritually sanctified – or both – speak to the awesome power of nature to sustain our existence and revitalize our innermost selves. Amidst evolving land use priorities nationally – such as delisting of National Monuments and the reopening of protected areas to industrial exploration – and global debates regarding human habitation and its implications on ecosystems worldwide, Monument scales down to one spot in an effort to plumb something more universal.