The Evaporator Series | 2022

The mark making of the Evaporator Series begins and ends without conscious intent. It begins and ends fully trusting the process.

By intentionally tapping into somatic and non-conscious experience, the process is disarmingly personal. It is an artifact of the moment, born of deep healing. 

The material is water on slate. Brushing on water makes a mark that looks like dark black ink, and then it evaporates. It is only water.

There is a deeply cathartic effect to watching an expression in need of release evaporating before one's eyes. 

The work is reminiscent of Automatism, a 20th Century style of painting inspired by Freud's then new concept of the subconscious. My process also takes influenced by hitsuzendo (筆禅道) and drawing the enso (円相), meditative practices associated with Japanese Zen Buddhism. In both of these ancient practices, marks made aren't altered, corrected, or changed. They capture the zeitgeist of a moment in time.

The Process

• Meditate for 45 minutes
• Pick up the brush when it’s right to pick up the brush
• Draw a brush stroke when it’s right to draw
• Take a picture of the brush stroke
• Count to 10, take the next picture of the brush stroke
• Take pictures every count of ten, until the brush stroke has evaporated

My human unpredictability is part of the the documentation process. I don't use a tripod, or a timer. I hold the camera by hand and count in my head. It is a material and embodied process. The anomalies and perturbations, disrupting the otherwise pristine digital documentation as they do, are reminders of the embodied nature of the process.