Fictional Cartography

Work-in-progress, collage on Fabriano Artistico watercolor paper, 29.5 x 41”

Fictional Cartography is a collage of different styles of colonial buildings to form an imagined city. Using printed illustrations from “discarded” library books that I have purchased online, titled; Architects of the American Colonies / Vitruvius Americanus, by John Fitzhugh Millar. This work explores many interrelated ideas, from invasive to native, naturalized vs. alien, from immigrant to local, as well as the notion of ownership and authenticity. It also visually inspired by Giovanni Battista Piranesi’s imagined and idealized cities; “Ichnographia” or Imaginary Plan of the Campus Martius, 1762.