Urban Forest

My recent work has its genesis in my observations of a paper recycling plant located next to my studio building in St. Paul, Minnesota.  Out my window I can see a never-ending stream of semi trucks pull up next to the plant and disgorge mountains of used cardboard boxes, packing materials, and bales of compressed paper. The paper is dumped in a concrete yard, forming a constantly shifting landscape that rises and falls, spreads and recedes as the days pass.  Every so often, the piles must be sprayed with a water cannon to keep them from catching on fire or to prevent the wind from scattering the paper across the neighborhood.  Despite the constant bustle of activity in the yard, the piles never disappear.

Since making a series of paintings and drawings of the paper plant, I have visited scrap metal yards, a bottle factory, and a neighborhood recycling facility.  I am fascinated by the piles of scrap material at these sites, which uncannily resemble the natural landscape in their structure and complexity, textural and topographical variety, and cyclical rhythms and patterns.

Recently my focus has shifted from broader views of the sites to close-ups of the scrap material itself. Sorted and organized by type, it tends to resist categorization and orderliness – the wind blows the paper out of its neatly defined piles and stacks, scattering it across the yard; crushed into cubes, the rusted metal bends and twirls, creating organic rhythms at odds with the rigid geometry imposed upon it. The imagery is rich with associations -- life and death, growth and decay, order and chaos.