Strata Series at the Airport: Layers in Motion

Strata Series at the Airport: Layers in Motion

I’m honored to share that my work is currently on view in a three-person exhibition at the Art at the Airport gallery at the Quad City International Airport. The exhibition runs from March 4 through April 27, 2026, and features my Strata Series alongside work by Amanda Langer and Nick Schroeder.

This exhibition feels especially meaningful because of where it exists. The gallery sits in the main arrival and departure area—an in-between space where people are constantly moving, transitioning, arriving, and leaving. Nearly a million people pass through this space each year. Some pause. Some don’t. But the work lives there regardless, quietly in the flow of daily movement.

About the Work

Strata Series continues my exploration of encaustic painting as both a material and a metaphor.

The word strata refers to layers of earth formed over long periods of time—through pressure, erosion, disruption, and stillness. I think of these natural formations as quiet records of experience. In many ways, we carry our own strata: layers of memory, ritual, trauma, and joy that accumulate over time.

Each piece in this series is built from thousands of individual droplets of molten wax, applied one at a time. The process is slow and repetitive, and it has become central to my practice. Some areas build into dense, rhythmic fields. Others are scraped back or interrupted. The surface becomes a kind of terrain—recording gestures of care, repetition, and rupture.

While these works often begin as material investigations—exploring texture, translucency, and form—they gradually shift into something more reflective. They become meditations on resilience.

Not resilience as something forceful or visible, but something quieter. A kind of persistence. The act of continuing. Of showing up. Of building something, mark by mark.

Seeing the Work

From a distance, the paintings can feel structured, even minimal. But as you move closer, the surface begins to reveal itself—the individual marks, the subtle variations, the disruptions and scars. That shift in perspective is important to me. It mirrors how we come to understand ourselves and each other over time: gradually, and often through closer attention.

In a space like an airport, where time is often compressed or fragmented, I like the idea that someone might encounter the work in passing—and then choose to slow down, even briefly, and take a closer look.

In Conversation with Other Materials

This exhibition also brings together three very different material practices: encaustic, fiber, and tile. Amanda Langer’s sculptural fiber work and Nick Schroeder’s Japanese tile pieces each approach process, repetition, and structure in their own way.

I appreciate being part of this kind of conversation—where the differences in material highlight shared concerns around time, labor, and transformation.

If You’re Passing Through

If you find yourself traveling through the Quad City International Airport between now and April 27, I hope you’ll take a moment to stop and spend some time with the work.

And if you do, I hope it offers a moment of pause—and perhaps a reflection of your own layers,quietly held.