A tax on a bag and other landscapes, Solo Exhibition, Visual Arts Gallery at University of Illinois Springfield, January 17 – February 16, 2023

The works in this exhibition investigate the material weight, volume, surface area and structure of the ubiquitous paper shopping bag. In this work I ask questions about how the climate crisis is imaged through the literary symbol of the bag tax that is popular in urban environments in the US. As a method to decrease one-use plastics or paper, the tax puts an emphasis on the morality of changing everyday personal consumer behavior. Through a series of arrangements and compressions that populate the gallery’s floor, these sculptures look at how we understand abstract numerical relationships like quantity, singularity and accumulation.

Drawing on my interests in painting as a method of symbolic and diagrammatic thought, the painted compositions in the show use contrasting color relationships and investigations of point of view to suspend moral tensions observed in my everyday encounters. Through imagery like trash thrown out the window of a car, a monument’s point of view, and a named donation for a private healthcare clinic, the paintings address the viewer with intimate visual vignettes of the urban landscape.

_{the toss, acrylic on paper, various sizes, 2022}

_{Untitled, acrylic paint on paper bag, 2021}