2014 - 2018
This body of work is an account of two regions—Western New York and Central Washington—and the people there. It began as a visual essay exploring configurations of "home," and the relationship between the temporary and permanent spaces that constitute home for various people. As images and research accumulated, my work became animated more and more by the inadequacy of all narrative or identity to account for our ties to location.
What is correctly read as archetypal about these figures and locations is nonetheless undercut by objects, surfaces, signs, or even small gestures that indicate a more complicated, often illegible relationship between the parts. Bad Medicine is not a plea for authenticity, or a proposition of unity. Rather it is an assertion that these notions poison sight and feeling alike.
+ + +
The title "Bad Medicine" is a reference to pharmakon, [in Greek)] a word indicating both "remedy" and "poison." It is also borrowed from a song of the same name.