In human Nature, I use a layered painting technique to interweave historic textile patterns with expressive and romantic landscape traditions. In this way I examine how humans have commodified and attempted to control the natural world throughout Western history. Of particular interest is how the consequences of our actions are often masked with a veil of beauty. The pieces explore the historical significance and implications of 18th-century Indian chintz textiles. European passion for the beautiful, stylized natural designs of nature in these cotton textiles contributed to the establishment of the colonial cotton trade in the American South. These visually pleasing chintz patterns distracted from the dire consequences that continue to shape our landscape and society today.

Each piece in the series combines two distinct landscape interpretations which are interwoven using 18th Century textile patterns: a gesturally expressive layer representing pre-colonial America and a more structured layer drawing from 19th-century romantic landscape traditions, particularly the Hudson River School