In 2024, I began developing the Pressure Points series, part of the Driftpoints project, during my residencies at Yaddo and the Vermont Studio Center, where I had access to a printing press. This endeavor was an unexpected detour while I was exploring the surface of needlepoint using printmaking techniques.

By chance, I discovered a genre of amateur seascape and landscape paintings on eBay. These pieces were strikingly similar to each other, suggesting a programmatic approach to color application, composition, perspective, and palette. Their formulaic nature, akin to needlepoint results, lacked strong personal expression. Intrigued, I purchased several of these paintings and attempted to print them onto paper by running them through the press using carbon paper. The decision to use carbon paper relates to my use of crude oil for the landscapes of my Spilt Sun(2019) work. I wanted the 5800 lbs of pressure put on the landscape paintings by the press to evoke the pressure humans exert on the environment. The printmaking, done in darkness and only revealed afterward, was also evocative of our inability to perceive the slow accumulation of carbon in the air or pollutants in the earth.

After several attempts to unsuccessfully print found landscape paintings, I shifted to creating my own white acrylic-on-board landscapes depicting earthquakes, volcanoes, and violent seascapes that aimed to convey land as tumultuous, expressive, and ever-changing. The heavily embossed surfaces conveyed the earth’s crust and water’s surface, emphasizing the materiality and perpetual transformation of the environment.

For the white pieces, I printed carbon onto the surface of the paintings. For the black pieces, I glued carbon paper to their surface and then ran them through the press to remove the carbon from the embossed areas.