Nature and Culture - Lost home

The conceptual premise of my work is naturally in flux, reflecting my ever-changing life experience and understanding. But over the years, I have consistently returned to explore ideas around belonging, home, and longing. These themes are deeply rooted in my own biography, emerging from personal reflections, experiences, and relationships. As my practice has evolved, it has expanded beyond individual narratives to engage with broader notions of human connectedness and interdependence with nature.
In my explorations of nostalgia and the romance of longing, I have explored the intricacy of human relationships—not only of us humans with one another but also our relationships with the natural world. My investigation grapples with a pervasive sense of alienation that I experience in relation to nature, a feeling that is increasingly prevalent in contemporary life. This state of alienation resides in the complex fabric of Culture itself. As we shape our environments and create objects that serve human needs, (objects, ironically, much like the art I produce to probe these very themes) a chasm inadvertently grows between ourselves and our origins as primarily physical beings.
This tension between our instinctual connection to the natural world and our intellectual pursuits, where thoughts about loneliness and mortality have become central preoccupations, is a fundamental aspect of my work. In this suspended state, I grapple with identity as both creator and created, straddling material existence and existential inquiry. In my work I interrogate this paradox, and viewers are invited to reflect on their own connections to nature, and to ponder the cultural constructs that dictate their understandings of place and belonging in the world.
In my work, I explore longing and belonging. Not only longing for a lost homeland, or for belonging to someone through a shared life, but longing for belonging to nature, and a reconnection with the earth and its patterns and rhythms. I find solace in linking personal narratives to universal preoccupations through my art. I wonder at how we can reconcile our cultural advancements with our innate ties to the natural world.

EH 2024