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IMAGES 2 & 3 - Soldiers, 2004, 14 X 11 inches , mixed media, collage, and cut paper on paper.

The soldiers series uses collage and mixed media in an attempt to comment on war and its connections to the world at large. The images are borrowed from a book of illustrations of the militaries of the world. In them the soldiers are depicted alternately as either heroic or as generic stereotypes. By presenting them in a more

challenging way and using images from various sources, the collaged soldiers become the embodiments of their cultures, which advance their own agendas at the expense of others.


IMAGE 5 - Consilience, No. 4, 2003, 14 X 11 inches, mixed media, collage, and cut paper on paper and IMAGE 6 - Soldier, Saturn, Bunny, 2004, 14 X 11 inches, mixed media, collage, and cut paper on paper.

Consilience refers to the jumping together of knowledge by the linking of facts and fact-based theory across disciplines to create a groundwork of explanation. In his influential book of the same name, the renowned scientist and Pulitzer Prize winning author Edward O. Wilson, discusses the possibility of one unifying theory of existence. The controversial ideas that he puts forth are nothing short of a unity of all of the branches of knowledge. Intrigued by this idea I made these works in response. They are my fragmented and intuitive interpretation of such a unity.

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In them I use a variety of media including drawing, collage, and cut paper. As in previous bodies of work all of my source material comes from my job as a librarian. By utilizing discarded or donated books, papers, and other materials I reclaim these objects and give them new life as an altered but still connected means of expression. The final images can be read in many ways. Connections are sought and made spontaneously and have meaning but ultimately are kept ambiguous in order for the viewer to make the final personal connections.