As a new parent advice files at you from every direction. When the baby spikes a fever, cries in an unusual way, or produces odd odors or colors we turn to the internet—the message boards and blogs—for explanations and the stories of others who have been here before. Sage wisdom, born from someone's particular experience, is often boiled down into numbered lists of dos and don'ts accompanied by an adorable image of the perfect child. Pinterest is filled with such appealing posts: "5 Things You Should Never Tell Your Child"; "30 Things To Help Your Baby Sleep"; "10 Things All Good Moms Do". These simple solutions and picturesque images are as tempting as they are dangerous. They suggest that the complicated relationship between parent and child can be easily navigated if you just do (or don't do) these particular things. This body of work encapsulates my own anxieties in my role as a new mother, and continues my exploration of the connection between text and image. Using my own daughter as model, her image is modified in each work by vague text, suggestive of the contradictions often found between the reality of childrearing and the way our culture describes it.
All paintings are watercolor on gemini,
22.5" x 30", created in 2016.
1. Begin As You Intend To Go On
2. Follow A Routine
3. Keep A Log
4. Wait For It
5. Slow Down
6. Read To Your Baby
7. Don't Worry
8. It's Me Who Decides
9. There's No Such Thing As Perfect
10. Sometimes There's Nothing You Can Do
This series is currently in progress. It centers on ideas of lost languages, symbol systems, and intuited knowledge.
This body of work has been exhibited at:
Darger HQ in Omaha, NE
The Art Gallery at the University of Maryland College Park
The Art Gallery at the University of Montevallo in Alabama
watercolor on paper
11" x 14"
2015
watercolor on paper
14" x 11"
2015
watercolor on paper
14" x 11"
2015
watercolor on paper
14" x 11"
2015
watercolor on paper
11.5 ” x 15”
2013
watercolor on paper
11" x 14"
2015
watercolor on paper
14" x 11"
2015
watercolor on paper
15 ” x 11.5”
2013
watercolor on paper
12" x 16"
2013
watercolor
22 x 18 inches
2013
oil on panel
21 ” x 13.5”
2011
Can subjective experience provide objective truth? This question is at the heart of Principles of Invisibility. Through the lens of paranormal sightings and occult knowledge, Kauffman’s watercolors test personal forms of cosmic knowledge to bring into question the “truth” of visual data and recorded experiences. These inconsistent visual forms suggest that the lens through which we view paranormal phenomena may contribute to the lack of clarity and confusion within the subject. In the last 60 years, these strange sights have greatly increased in number, leaving behind many well-documented UFO reports. While many have said, “I know what I saw,” the ability to convey that truth objectively still remains elusive.
This body of work has been exhibited at:
The Arlington Art Center in Arlington, VA*
HEREart Center in New York, NY*
Banfill-Locke Center for the Arts in Fridley, MN
*indicates solo or two-person show
geodesic dome: corrugated plastic, acrylic paint
120”’ x 120” x 120”
2014
A site-specific installation as part of my solo show at the Arlington Arts Center.
geodesic dome: corrugated plastic, acrylic paint
120”’ x 120” x 120”
2014
A site-specific installation as part of my solo show at the Arlington Arts Center.
watercolor on Yupo
23” x 35”
2014
watercolor on Yupo
23” x 35”
2014
watercolor on Yupo
23” x 35”
2014
view master with reel, edition of 5
4" x 6" x 5"
2014
Post-Idiom is series of landscape-based watercolors that use this genre to confront contemporary concerns about the environment, language, and the malleability of images. Nineteenth century paintings of dramatic and idealized American landscapes have been manually copied with an unpredictable and painterly medium, referring to the slippage between reality and image. These paintings are completed by short bits of text culled from colloquial sayings that are vague yet poignant. This twitter-feed type language disrupts the drippy imagery, undermining the usual pleasure of painting: to be taken somewhere else. The ambivalent lines in each painting suggest the range of responses one might have when confronted by climate change. Many of these paintings were worked on during Hurricane Sandy’s arrival last fall, a storm that has become a benchmark for the new normal of our erratic weather; and the sublimity of that experience no doubt worked its way into this series.
This body of work has been exhibited at:
The Adirondack Lakes Center for the Arts in Blue Mountain Lake, NY*
Community Arts Center, Danville, KY [best in show]
Woman Made Gallery in Chicago, IL
Keirnan Gallery in Lexington, VA*
*indicates solo or two-person show
watercolor on Yupo
16” x 20.5"
2012
Idioms are everywhere. They represent our inherited wisdom, the voice of elders, and our conventional knowledge. Filial Piety would tell us to follow this wisdom above all else, but under the surface of the seemingly tried and true is a very dangerous tendency.
watercolor on Yupo
29” x 36.5"
2012
The science of the 20th and 21st century has challenged thousands of years of intuition and lead us to new and more accurate understand of our earth and our cosmos. We have more knowledge and information is more accessible than ever before, yet for the first time in history average Americans have less education and are less prosperous than their parents.
watercolor on Yupo
22” x 29"
2012
“I often ask beginner geography students to consider where their last meal came from. Tracing back all the items used in the production of that meal reveals a relation of dependence upon a whole world of social labour conducted in many different places under very different social relations and conditions of production. That dependency expands further when we consider the materials and goods used in the production of the goods we directly consume. Yet we can in practice consume our meal without the slightest knowledge of the intricate geography of production and the myriad social relationships embedded in the system that puts it upon the table.” – David Harvey, Between Space and Time, 1990.
watercolor on Yupo
21” x 29"
2012
This September the extent of sea ice at the South Pole reached an all time high. While sea ice is diminishing in the north, it is growing rapidly in the south, a scenario that none of the dominant climate models take into account. After a summer of record high temperatures in North America the global warming hysteria is high, yet much of the climate data suggests the planet might actually be cooling. While many of us have bought into the idea of anthropomorphic climate change, we do not actually know how climate change will take shape.
watercolor on Yupo
29” x 38.5"
2012
We find ourselves in crisis with our environment. A crisis we have seen coming for some time and one that will continue to unfold. This crisis stems from a fundamental disconnection between man and nature. Set in motion by industrialization, this disconnection is both physical and conceptual stemming from our increasingly urban lifestyles and exacerbated by a mass reversion to conventional wisdom and superstitious beliefs. As extreme weather and massive storms increase in frequency we will pray to God to save us, yet he will say, “I told you so.”
watercolor on Yupo
29" x 38.5"
2012
As Jean-Francois Lyotard wrote, landscapes make places consumable. The rectangle of the landscape painting creates a frame, a definable boundary, similar to the fence on the edge of cultivated land. The picture plane is placed on a vertical wall at the height of the average human’s eyes to mimic a window. Landscapes reflect more about human perception than they depict the natural world accurately. An accurate study of nature usually requires some human discomfort. For example, for hundreds of years we thought that the tops of the giant redwood trees in California would be relatively barren. Yet once researchers were able to access the canopy using difficult climbing techniques, they found a complex and teaming ecosystem.
watercolor on Yupo
17.5” x 20"
2012
“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms.” – Henry David Thoreau, Walden: Or, Life in the Woods, 1854.
watercolor on Yupo
22” x 29"
2012
In 1981, Buckminster Fuller published A Critical Path. In this book he lays out the problems of our economies, education systems, and our use of fossil fuels, and he proposes very manageable solutions to these crises. That same year Ronald Regan was sworn in as President signaling an extremely conservative swing in the popular opinion and leadership of the United States. Many have now linked the current global financial woes to the laws passed during Regan’s presidency. This is illustrated by Charles Morris’ account in the 2010 documentary, Inside Job: “I had a friend who was a bond trader at Merrill Lynch in the 1970s. He had a job as a train conductor at night, 'cause he had three kids and couldn't support them on what a bond trader made. By 1986, he was making millions of dollars, and thought it was because he was smart.”
watercolor on Yupo
17 ” x 20”
2012
The World Economic Forum Global Risks 2013 report released January 8th begins with an unnerving theory that sluggish and stalled economies worldwide are a direct distraction from long-term environmental horrors.
watercolor on Yupo
16” x 20"
2012
Despite the desperate situation we are in, I am hopeful. As tiny and insignificant as we may each feel on a planet of seven billion, each and every one of us does matter. Our actions, however large or small, private or public, affect the future of our planet and ourselves. These paintings are critical of our current and historic consumption of the landscape, yet they are also encouraging, like motivational posters. After all, the first step is always admitting there is a problem.
A medium is a substance between two others, a vehicle for transmission.
My work serves as an alchemical medium through which messages, simultaneously profound and mundane, can be communicated. The images in my work are constructed like a collage, where disparate elements are fused during the alchemical process of making an image. The elements used have been pulled from a variety of places including magazines, the internet, and observational drawing. The result takes the form of something like a motivational poster with shape-shifting slogans significant to everyone and no one in particular. When generating this work I was looking at personal as well as global events, and inspired by the idea that this year is one of transformation. Upheaval often leaves us looking for guidance, but as the elected officials and the system of global capitalism continues to surpass our expectations for corruption, greed, and destruction, we are left searching for other forms of wisdom.
This body of work has been exhibited at:
Hillyer Art Space in Washington, DC*
University of Maryland University College in Greenbelt, MD
Target Gallery at the Torpedo Gallery in Alexandria, VA
Pagus Gallery in Norristown, PA
University of Mary Washington Galleries in Fredericksburg, VA
First Street Gallery in New York, NY
*Indicates solo show
oil on canvas
28” x 32”
2012
1. Breathe in through the nose and out through the mouth.
2. Tak in slow deep breaths and imagine with each breath in, you are breathing in light; and expelling darkness with each exhale.
3. Visualize your body filling with ligh from your belly out your limbs.
4. Continue until you are calm.
oil on canvas
48” x 72”
2012
Time is a human invention. The speed of our neurons affects the speed at which we experience the flow of time. This however is an inverse relationship where the faster our neurons are the slower we experience time.
oil on canvas
33” x 56”
2012
Continental ice sheets can experience extreme melting even when temperatures don't hit record highs, according to a new analysis by Dr. Marco Tedesco, assistant professor in the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at The City College of New York. His findings suggest that glaciers could undergo a self-amplifying cycle of melting and warming that would be difficult to halt... In 2012 there was an unprecedented major melt of the Greenland's ice sheet where melt levels were 47% above normal. Click herefor current conditions in Greenland.
oil on canvas
40” x 25”
2012
Avian influenza is a flu infection in birds. The virus that causes the bird infection can mutate to infect humans. Such a mutation could start a deadly worldwide epidemic. The avian flu virus has been shown to survive in the environment for long periods of time. Infection may be spread simply by touching contaminated surfaces. Birds who were infected with this flu can continue to release the virus in their feces and saliva for as long as 10 days. The more the avian flu virus spreads, the greater the chances of a worldwide outbreak in humans. There is a tremendous concern that this poses an enormous pandemic threat.
oil on canvas
40” x 40”
2012
Think of any region of space, such as the room you are in now. Imagine that whatever happens in this region amounts to information processing—information regarding how things are right now is transformed by the laws of physics into information regarding how they will be in a second or a minute or an hour. Since the physical processes we witness, as well as those by which we’re governed, seemingly take place within this region, it’s natural to expect that the information those processes carry is also found within this region. But for black holes, we’ve found that the link between information and surface area goes beyond mere numerical accounting; there’s a concrete sense in which information is stored on their surfaces. Since the information required to describe physical phenomena within any given region of space can be fully encoded by data on a surface that surrounds that region, then there’s reason to think that the surface is where the fundamental physical processes actually happen. Our familiar three-dimensional reality, these ideas suggest, would then be likened to a holographic projection of those distant two-dimensional physical processes.
watercolor on paper
23” x 18.5”
2011
Pluto is a dark planet, and it is part of an inferior solar system. All the evils that have been submerged and hidden for so long are being brought to the surface to be faced, cleansed, and changed. It is the Plutonian energy at work behind the chaos and confusion that is sweeping the planet. There is always darkness before the dawn.
watercolor and type writer text on yupo
11” x 14”
2012
Linji saw a monk coming and held his flywhisk straight up. The monk made a low bow, whereupon the Master struck him a blow. The Master saw another monk coming and again held his flywhisk straight up. The monk paid no attention, whereupon the Master struck him a blow as well.
watercolor and typewriter text on yupo
11” x 14”
2012
Death signifies the commencement of profound change. Sacrifice has led to self-acceptance, and one’s concept of self has been forever altered. The old self has been discarded and a new one has yet to fully form. In death, a new birth inevitably follows. Thirteen is the corresponding number to Death. The number thirteen is made up of the numbers one and three and when added together equals the number four. Four represents stability and order. Four is the number of manifestation. Death, so often associated with chaos, actually initiates the transformation necessary to begin a new phase of life. Death is not an ending, but rather a part of a greater cycle where the past lays foundations for the future. Death is part of a larger pattern. What can be seen as destructive is, in truth, the opportunity for something much greater. Death plants the seeds for the growth of tomorrow.
As the 2012 apocalyptic fervor runs high, I've been thinking a lot about signs. Many important historical, religious, and mythical events were heralded by some sort of unearthly sign, such as wandering stars or other strange lights in the sky. My work explores these types of phenomena. I've pulled images of odd sights from internet archives, displayed excepts from Wallace Steven's poems, A Primitive Like an Orb and The Man with The Blue Guitar, and included written reports from Jaques Vallee's and Chris Aubeck's "Chronology of Wonders" in the book Wonders in the Sky. What is brought to the fore in this work is the process of looking and reading. The information presented can only be fully seen through out-dated technology and the naturally reflective properties of water, while the text is abstract and vague. Within this work I suggest that the lens through which we view these phenomena may contribute to the lack of clarity and confusion within the subject. In the last 60 years, these strange sights have greatly increased in number, leaving behind many well-documented UFO reports. What exactly causes these phenomena is still unclear, but if the past is any indication of the future, perhaps something big is coming.
This body of work was exhibited at the TempArts Gallery in Salisbury, MD.
Panaview slide viewer, 35mm color slide, and wall text
10” x 3” x 3”
2012
wood, rubber, water solution, and hand-painted text
4’ x 4’ x 2’ [dimensions of the pool]
2012
This is a site-specific installation that includes a reflecting pool and watercolor on paper hung directly above the pool facing down. The text in this image reads: “A big star appeared suddenly in the southeast, scintillating. It rose and came down three times. Another star repeated the same motion and was said to have fallen on a village.”
Originally shown in St. Mary's, Ohio, this body of work is about the longing for and the romantic ideals attached to landscape; specifically bodies or water. I was motivated by the issue of toxic algea in St. Mary's Grand Lake, among other stories of contaminated water. I was also motivated by own fond memories of Midwestern lakes and rivers. Water is a mysterious medium—changing from a solid to liquid to gas in the right conditions—which mirrors the kind of mental shape shifting produced by memory. Like the substance they are filled with, bodies of water are also often things of mystery and magic, with stories of bottomless lakes, primordial soup, and the Loch Ness Monster. The romance of the aquatic landscape, however, is often at odds with the realities of the natural world. Nature is messy, unpredictable, violent, and even dangerous. Yet we long for it, want to be near it, and love to see pictures of it. That contradiction between reality and memory, between accurate representation and the fuzzy romantic image was at the forefront of my mind when creating this work. I used watercolor to suggest not only the nature of water itself, but also the nature of our flawed memories and mythical stories. The text included with each painting is pulled from literature, technical books, and personal writings; including, Thoreau’s Walden, Shelley’s poem "Arethusa", and The Great Gatsby. Oftentimes our sympathy for nature, our desire to be “green” and protect our environment is provoked by romanticized ideas of it. Beautiful and idyllic scenes of rivers and lakes can remind us to protect our fragile resources so they can continue to inspire tall tales and sublime pictures for many years to come.
This body of work has been exhibited at:
watercolor & typewriter text on Yupo
2011
watercolor & typewriter text on Yupo
2011
watercolor & typewriter text on Yupo
2011
watercolor & typewriter text on Yupo
2011
watercolor & typewriter text on Yupo
2011
watercolor & typewriter text on Yupo
2011
watercolor & typewriter text on Yupo
2011
watercolor & typewriter text on Yupo
2011
watercolor & typewriter text on Yupo
2011
watercolor & typewriter text on Yupo
2011
watercolor & typewriter text on Yupo
2011
Ophiuchus Copernican Health Counseling, 2009
Ophiuchus Copernican Health Counseling (OCHC) was created as a fictive organization for the exhibition "Fake Future" at Museum Gallery/ Gallery Museum. OCHC optimistically posed that health care in the future would be more holistically and spiritually integrated. I set up a temporary doctor’s office with a separate waiting area and met with patients on a first-come-first-serve basis. Patients were asked to complete simple personal histories, including birth date, time, location, and give an account of any acute or chronic issues. I then met with each person individually in the created office and used their astrological birth chart to counsel them on how to lead a healthy emotional and physical lifestyle. I also offered advice on beneficial supplements where appropriate.
After the collapse, no matter the cause, the world of images that fills our televisions and magazines will no longer exist. Only fragmented memories will remain, bits of what was once a complete and seamless story. Instead of a world full of images mediating our every human desire and relationship, all will be quite. From the rubble we will begin to rebuild our visual language. Re-assembling the fragments we will tell the story of our once great civilization and how it fell.
sanded magazine page and gouache
12" x 9"
2011
sanded magazine page
11" x 8"
2009
sanded magazine page with acrylic
11" x 8"
2009
sanded magazine page with watercolor
11"x 8"
2009
sanded magazine page with watercolor
11"x 8"
2009
sanded magazine page
11"x 8"
2008
sanded magazine page with chalk pastel
11"x 8"
2009
sanded magazine page with watercolor
11"x 8"
2009
sanded magazine page with graphite
11"x 8"
2009
sanded poster with oil and acrylic
72" x 48"
2009
sanded poster with acrylic and chalk pastel
72" x 48"
2009
gouache on catalog page
9" x 9"
2010
gouache on magazine page
11" x 8"
2010
sharpie on magazine page
11" x 8"
2010
everyday dress, 2007 – 2008
"Here is a delight in normal living, not through its limitations but rather through a reiterated release of selfhood."*
During this year long project I wore the same dress everyday. There were four different dresses, one for each season. This performance was an effort to remove the question of "what am I going to ear today" from my daily ritual of dressing. Removing the option to change what I wore, or to superficially reinvent myself, dislocated my self-consciousness. In other words, through this rigid daily ritual I was able to transcend my self. To record this ephemeral, durational performance, each day my outfit was documented with a polaroid photo. This is a selection of those photos.
This body of work was a diaristic, month-long drawing project conducted in April 2008.
![Reflecting Room [detail image]](https://static1.squarespace.com/static/555a835ae4b091e120913a23/555a8498e4b0e109ea9e7c4f/555a8641e4b0aff6c9e4964f/1431996011356/02-dome-detail.jpg)
![Personal Viewing Apparatus (PAV) 1b [detail]](https://static1.squarespace.com/static/555a835ae4b091e120913a23/555cdfd2e4b01d499bd2f424/555ce058e4b093957454176e/1437138588796/apparati-2.jpg)
![Personal Viewing Apparatus (PAV) 1b [detail]](https://static1.squarespace.com/static/555a835ae4b091e120913a23/555cdfd2e4b01d499bd2f424/555ce059e4b0dac8b9036855/1437138320349/apparati-3.jpg)
![Personal Viewing Apparatus (PAV) 1b [detail]](https://static1.squarespace.com/static/555a835ae4b091e120913a23/555cdfd2e4b01d499bd2f424/55a8fe1be4b054bcba8e63a7/1437138484306/UFO12.jpg)
![Personal Viewing Apparatus (PVA) 1a [detail]](https://static1.squarespace.com/static/555a835ae4b091e120913a23/555cdfd2e4b01d499bd2f424/555ce059e4b0800a697df059/1437138578984/pool-2.jpg)
![shoji screen 2: old world monkey [detail]](https://static1.squarespace.com/static/555a835ae4b091e120913a23/555ce0b8e4b08203fc3520c9/555ce0eee4b072521ee75b7b/1439857067312/img011.jpg)
