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Artist Statement - Osaka '01
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My recent work engages the idea of absence, to narrow the great divide between the subject, the artist, the artworks and the viewer. My job is to look carefully, and creatively relate observations - but so many things can interfere. Materials, equipment, techniques, concepts and ego get in the way of direct communication. Minimal and conceptual approaches to art, including ink painting are attractive to me for their purity and directness. Using found materials, appropriating images or excavating found paper are other techniques used to present ideas and subjects with a minimum of interference.

Living in foreign countries presents the temptation to isolate peculiarities of the host culture. But this is a boring and fruitless approach because the observer's musings are usually too obvious. My approach is to look very carefully, especially in places few others care to look, and find something that expresses the flavour and beauty of that moment and place. To show how it is. Reflections on a river, peeling posters and cheap souvenirs can also be beautiful and wonders can be found in a discarded scrap of paper. To express the aesthetic and emotive potential of humble materials and sights that are unconsciously engaged with everyday. When these are presented in the context of art, a moment of insight and joy is sparked in the viewer because of their familiarity.

Photography is appealing because of its immediacy. I've been photographing cheap souvenirs obscuring local wonders and the reflections of neon signs on the surface of street puddles at night. Thousands of people unconsciously see these common sights all the time, and these photos are intentionally not much more than tourist photos or ordinary pictures looking down at a river or wet side walk.

Even more direct is that there are many Print Club photo sticker machines everywhere. Who needs a camera when they're already on every corner? The form of this art is limited to the fixed, one purpose machine, allowing concentration on the subject. One approach is to simply lift the background curtain enabling the machine to capture an image of its surroundings. In this way, content and context, subject and medium become one. My role has become seeing an opportunity, pushing a button, and allowing the subject to express itself, as it is.

Osaka, 9/01