Anoxia                 

Many of the mixed media images in this series titled Anoxia (a term that describes a condition in which part of the ocean is missing vital oxygen) use text borrowed from novels, sailors’ journals, scientific papers and other observations of our complex cultural relationship with the ocean. “Dearest” and “My Love” can be read as love letters from a wandering sailor to a spouse back home using passages from Herman Melville’s novel Moby-Dick; a potent mixture of fear and wonder is revealed as this character interacts with the sea.  Other pieces use a more simple form of communication, as if coming from the sea itself, in the form of stitched, printed or hand written text, or creeping white lines imitating disease. In a sense, these brightly colored images lure the viewer into the work while introducing unsettling notions about the effects of human behavior on ocean life.