Pet Identification Card

The inner life of another is unknowable. No matter how close we are, there is no way to fully know what another being feels.
I make work from that place of not-knowing. My gaze toward insects, small animals, and creatures at society's margins is not a search for answers. Knowing that complete understanding is impossible, I reach toward them anyway — it is that act of reaching that gives my practice its meaning.
Biology holds a concept called Umwelt: every creature inhabits its own distinct perceptual world, different from another's. I move between these worlds, from a place that belongs fully to none of them — an in-between position bound up with my own upbringing, a solitary childhood spent closer to nature than to people.
Not-knowing can easily become resignation. My practice moves the opposite way: precisely because I cannot know, I look more carefully.
Seeing does not change what is seen. Yet the fact of having tried to see remains. My paintings are traces of that attempt.