Alone and the Wilderness

2014, time-lapse of 48 hours, 27 min running time which is continuously looped, collection of the Corning Museum of Glass

Windfall, a collaborative video created with Keith Heyward and Julia Liu, is a work of time lapse photography that features a gazing ball situated on Lake Clark, Alaska. Combining still life and landscape, the work investigates our connection and disconnection with nature and our conception of wilderness. The vessel stands as our surrogate, acting as a lens through which we see the world, reflected in the surfaces of the material, whose form and density buckle and twist the landscape, alluding to the nature of perception. Working en plein air directly informed the qualities of the still life composition, as light, weather, animals and insects collaborated in the final arrangement.

Gazing Ball in Burnt Forrest, Lake Clark, AK

2014, 38" x 28", c-print mounted to aluminum with gloss laminate, edition of 3

Combining portraiture, still life, and landscape, Alone and the Wilderness investigates our connection and disconnection with nature and our conception of wilderness. The divide between civilization and nature at times feels complete, as disconnection from the natural world is compensated by obsessive consumerism.The vessels stand as our surrogates, reflecting and refracting the environment, alluding to the nature of perception.

Alone and the Wilderness explores the threshold of landscape, simultaneously situating compositions inside and outside. The forest floor becomes our carpet, the trees, our curtains, the water, our mirror. Working en plein air directly informed the qualities of the still life composition, as light, weather, animals and insects collaborated in the final arrangement. Natural disintegration is counteracted with an enduring photographic lens.

Alone and the Wilderness was initiated at the Chulitna Lodge Wilderness Retreat on Lake Clark, Alaska in the summer of 2014. The title of the work pays homage to Richard Proenneke, a wilderness steward who lived on the nearby Twin Lakes for over 30 years, and whose writing and documentaries were a source of inspiration.