“The video works that comprise Overlook: assorted viewpoints en plein air are explorations of our shifting relationship with the natural world. In The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, Gertrude Stein writes, “I like a view, but I like to sit with my back turned to it.”

In Turn Your Back on Nature (2018), a pair of videos featuring various interventions within a landscape are presented, i.e., the sound of an idling car and the click of a camera shutter. At the same time, as a performer en plein air, I take on mundane tasks while disregarding the grandeur of the surrounding landscape. In an era in which we often cannot look away—from our screens, from our catastrophes—turning our backs on a striking view could be seen as a method for refocusing on the internal, an avoidance of a different kind of distraction. At the same time, disregarding (overlooking) our natural world carries its own shortcomings.

Set in the natural landscape of a north Georgia forest, Obstacle #273 (2016) gestures toward futility that often arises in contemporary life. As a performer en plein air, I set out to overcome a natural obstruction. After multiple attempts and multiple failures, I turn my back and the cycle continues.”