Networks, Maps, and Territory, began after my time at the Broad Institute, when I stumbled upon three beautiful thorn trees delineated in snow, and grew from the visual analogy between the tracery of tree branches and other networks in nature (neuronal, cellular, cracks in ice). Always attracted to negative spaces, I was also interested in the formal relationship between these structures and the empty spaces surrounding and co-defining them. Though inspired and driven by the sight of trees and brambles, they are fed by the coincidence of rhythms at different scales, which is the root of metaphors.
This series also explores the idea that “the map is not the territory.” an idea, first proposed in 1931 by the scientist and philosopher Alfred Korzypski, which posits that a rendering should not be mistaken for the thing itself. However, in paintings—where the painted surface and subject are both on display—the rendering and the thing do often merge, and the territory becomes indistinguishable from the map representing it.
As the paintings searched for their structure, they reached forward to the space of science and back into the space of figuration. Working through the images, I began to feel that here, through the ramifications of the networks, the map and the territory did indeed begin to merge.
