Small Sins 9

The wool dust on paper medium is one I first developed in 2004 and have been developing ever since. In more recent series I've employed a lattice pattern as shorthand for our selective awareness of lived realities. Of course we are designed to unconsciously select what we see and what we know or remember in order to spare ourselves what we can't easily process or bear. When it comes to our relationship with the natural world, however, our tendency to avoid thinking about our role in its destruction is dangerous and, I believe, also prevents us from taking even the measures we can take to protect our natural environment and spare the suffering of other nonhuman animals. In fact this is also how we live in relation to other humans who suffer. We render ourselves powerless. The 'small sins' of our everyday carelessness matter because they accumulate. The dust surface suggests the softening of reality to protect our tender hearts. The images themselves are fragments of a whole we can's see. When the camera focuses in too close to the subject it becomes difficult to see what is going on. The result, ironically, is a gentle image regardless of the subject.