It started with Zero.

Zero is nothing and everything, the space between before and after, absence and presence – a point of inflection. It is that moment of stasis just before things spring into action. Covid 19 is a Zero moment.

For me, Immaculate Preconception is the beautiful simplicity of ideas before they become form…the zero moment of the swirl of connections in your head. These three pieces reference both absence and presence in the proliferation of circular forms.

I took the photograph of the single egg first. It was meant to be vertical, but when I shifted it to horizontal it looked like it could be a moon. That day I came across an image of the very first real scan of a black hole (not an artist’s representation). Just for fun I inverted the image and I was amazed to see that it looked like the egg. It visually tied everything together for me – elemental nothingness/the end of everything and elemental minimalistic form/beginning of everything. The two other images flow out of that in the rest of the cycle – the breakdown back to nothingness.

Thinking and working with zero as a concept during this time of Covid has been uplifting and healing. I am continually inspired by a quote from another artist that explored the possibilities of Zero:

“Zero…a zone of silence and of pure possibilities for a new beginning.”
– Otto Piene