"Men really do need sea monsters in their personal oceans. An ocean without its unnamed monsters would be like a completely dreamless sleep"
-John Steinbeck, The Log from the Sea of Cortez.

Artist Statement:
For hundreds of years, societies learned about their world through secondhand documentation. Depictions of lands unfamiliar were consumed and regarded as pure fact by the viewer. This work emanates from this need for visual evidence, the desire to seek out the world's monsters and clinically file them away. Scenes of marine and terrestrial animal life have been stalwart interests since early childhood. Heavily informed by the phenomenon of the natural world, my images draw from the rich palette of zoological forms. In pairing traditional symbols with new elements, an ambiguous language can stir, one that is both familiar yet entirely new. This recombinant dialog elicits a response of thorough investigation.
As primary technique, copper etchings allows both intricacy of detail and line, and the tangible suggestion of antiquity. These are not depictions of the known world, yet are saturate with visual information, delicate lines representing specific times and spaces. The events unfolding in these images grand new discoveries and meanings with each subsequent viewing.

-Todd Freeman