elemental alchemy (v.):
1. a process of transformation embodying the powers of nature
2. the exchange of consciousness between forms
There is a silent language of being that speaks through leaf veins and tangled roots, books hidden in the fissures of mountains. All cells have mind in this living world, and the desire to communicate breaks the illusion of separation. This work is an exchange of consciousness between human and non-human embodiments of life — an energetic transmission of place, of elements, of essence. Man-made patterns interact with color distilled from plants, flowers, minerals, and sacred waters, conveying the potential of a human imprint that exists in harmony alongside its environment. The abstract beauty of the whole emerges only with expanded perspective, as in satellite photographs, where settlements fringe the Okavango Delta and borders do not exist. In opposition to visual commentary on destruction and climate change, these talismans call on the power of collective mind to envisage healing. May they be a portal to remembering our way home.
Handmade natural ink, charcoal, pencil, and Gangajal on watercolor paper: rose, marigold, moringa, palash, coreopsis, hibiscus, blue lotus, gladiolus, goldenrod, sumac, madder, yellowwood, mulberry, eucalyptus, wild grape, pokeweed, buckthorn, acorn cap, oak gall, indigo, senna, pomegranate, rooibos, turmeric, saffron, copper scrap, iron scrap, incense ash, pH modifiers
Artist's statement
In 2019, as bushfires raged across Australia’s southern coast, a shaman made a global request: Don't share the viral photos of fire. Don’t focus your prayers on stopping the fire. Instead, visualize rain.The essence of metaphysics: Where attention goes, energy flows.For two months, a soundtrack of rain played in my studio. My art practice developed alongside deepening studies of energy medicine. I awakened to the understanding that everything is alive in a field of shared consciousness, and the unfoldment of reality depends on the frequency in which it is imagined. Might there be voices on this planet other than our own that can help return it to equilibrium?When I began working with plants and metals as an artistic medium, it reawakened a heart connection with nature that had grown distant over years of living in New York. As a child my mother taught me to listen to the wind; my first words were calls to the crows. The yearning to rekindle that relationship incited solitary walks through the city, where I gathered elements in unnoticed ecosystems: an impound lot by Lincoln Tunnel, a Gowanus construction site, beachside overgrowth in the Rockaways. Conversations initiated with permission from the plants to forage; they continued in the kitchen where I taught myself to extract color and expanded on paper as the inks interacted and danced, coalesced and repelled. As a material, handmade ink is unpredictable. Color varies according to the nuances of individual plants and is sensitive to pH. It changes as the ink ages. The first lesson the elements taught me was to release control — by drawing I am a co-creator, but my primary role is to be a channel for the messages seeking to express themselves in visual form.Interpretations span polarities from micro to macro, attracting comparisons to both cellular structures and planetary landscapes. NASA geographic imagery and the photographs of Guy Laliberté, whose spaceflight encouraged water preservation through a portrayal of beauty, lend perspective to the patterns I follow with pencil and charcoal. There is an opportunity to play with the limitless nature of mind as awareness shifts between micro and macro and, due to the metamorphic nature of some of the materials, question one’s relationship with impermanence.I am also drawn to explore the transference of energy, especially in matter charged with high frequencies. Some of the roses and marigolds first existed as deity wreaths in a temple in India; other petals passed through the hands of hundreds of devotees, ecstatic in song. The water that forms the base of each painting comes from Ma Ganga, the Himalayan-born river personified as a goddess. In Indian religions, there is a concept of darshan — a reciprocal exchange of blessings in the presence of something or someone sacred. Can we receive energy from nature in visual form?. . . and can we, as equal expressions of Source, send it back through the power of individual and collective mind?In 2025, I will be starting a journey to make site-specific work in energetically potent places around the world, from Mount Shasta in California to Mount Kailash in Tibet. Like the subtle pathways that govern the human body’s nervous system — called meridians in Chinese medicine and nadis in Indian philosophy — ley lines form the planet’s nervous system. Mountains, geographic anomalies, and ancient spiritual sites often sit at major confluences of these lines, and the increasing intensity of conflicts and environmental upheaval are symptoms of imbalance within a system trying to right itself. Through transmissions directly from the land, the project is a dialogue and an invitation: to not just consume art but to use the power of attention to transmit an embodied image of wholeness to parts of our planet in great need.Visualize rain. Visualize peace.