The Map Readers

By removing the backgrounds of these images the figures are thrust into a timeless and placeless space. Their attempt to locate themselves by reading their maps emphasizes the futility of their situation. In these images the maps are rendered useless by stripping away any reference point, a necessity when using a map. But the figures are caught in a bind, the map is useless and yet it is their only familiar tool. The figures have been thrust into an absurd situation that mimics that of the human condition in general. The tools we have to define ourselves and to acquire certainty about our own existence are flawed and never yield clearly the desired results.

revealed through the drawing process. The power of these drawings comes from this direct, economical process that defines through negation rather than addition.

There are two forces at work in The Dictionary Series; one that eliminates all possibility of definition and one that clearly and accurately defines. In the former, it is no longer possible to know the definitions of the words simply because all of the text has been removed. And in the latter the geometric patterns precisely define the space where the text had been. This simultaneous action of defining and not defining is like a riddle or a Zen koan. It points directly to a fundamental and limiting human impulse: the desire to define and thereby judge the world. Good for some is evil for others, it’s all in the definition.

In this series the drawings provide the allusion of meaning. The original source from which they are made lends them an underlying structure that is very familiar (text on a page). However, despite this familiarity of form and the accompanying titles that refer directly to the source, the original meanings are inaccessible and obscured. This play between ordered familiarity and the absence of meaning reflects directly on the struggle to create order and meaning from the chaos of contemporary life.