Map Paintings

My paintings are based on topographical maps, and my most recent body of paintings are maps of the St Croix River. Maps have always reminded me of abstract paintings; grids and shapes that depict a neighborhood or topography are fascinating as a composition in a painting. 

The process to create my paintings starts with a small map that is run through a paper shredder, and the shreds are hastily assembled semi randomly. The re-assembled map is scanned into photoshop for more manipulation, and from here I find a composition. The final product is no longer a flat document but a depiction of a structure that exists in a three dimensional space. 

These paintings represent an effort to make a visually engaging object from jumbled nonsense, to combine a chaotic, all over composition with an underlying structure. 

Landscapes:

My paintings are based on the landscapes of my neighborhood, compositions I have encountered on my daily routine: walking the dog, out and about with my kids, etc.  If I spot an interesting composition I will either take a picture or draw it, or both, and manipulate the image in Photoshop. Using Photoshop I flatten areas in the image, play with the composition, and tweak the colors.

In my most recent paintings I take the process one step further in Photoshop by incorporating a street map of Lakeland into the painting.  By incorporating a map into a painting I’m combining two different perspectives into a single scene: a map, which is meant to be read literally, and a painting, which is a stylized representation.