Natural Order #2, 16" x 16", Chromogenic Prints

I have always been interested in the human desire to impose a meaningful pattern on a chaotic world. Nature seems to defy the ever-advancing edge of science, foiling and obfuscating our understanding at every turn. The most transparent illusion of our mastery of nature is the natural history museum and its ancestor, the cabinet of curiosities. In the various manifestations of the modern natural history museum, classification, preservation, and display reveals more about our historical attitudes towards nature than it does about nature itself.
The individual images were shot in a wide range of settings, including pathology collections, collections of religious orders, medical history museums, research collections, and natural science museums in the US and abroad. Through addition, subtraction, and re-arranging of the images with collage, categories and associations are confused. Contents of cabinets and jars have been emptied and replaced. The animals invade each other's dioramas, or the museum itself.

Natural Order #3, 16" x 16", Chromogenic Prints