I have been making intimately scaled paintings that explore notions of control through archetypes of landscape that shift eerily into still life. They address the history of representation and the relationship between visual structures and meta-criticism. The ambiguity of light, shifts in scale, the suggestion of an external presence, and the disorientation of perspective and category are important elements that manipulate the perception of familiarity and stability. The representations often hover on the side of the banal and mundane because of the apparent inactivity they show. On closer inspection, forms and lines mimic incisions and dissections, light becomes intrusive, and land is fragmented and isolated, repeatedly calling into question the solidity and function of the depiction. I often consider the “frame” of painting a petri dish, where the intentions of, and ideas about, experimentation take on potentially ambiguous and haunting definitions.