Vocabularies of the Numinous

Spatialities of Belief in the American West

In Colorado’s San Luis Valley, the invisible world is closer to the visible one. Those who travel and live here are drawn in by what might at different times be called the sacred, the mysterious, or the otherworldly — the numinous.

This painting series explores the way we see these invisible worlds. Subjects for painting were sourced through an experimental research method involving on-site interviews with people who have chosen to spend time in this landscape. Through this cross-media investigation arises a portrait of a place and the alternative metaphysics that coalesce here. Painting operates as a spatial practice to investigate the co-constitution of earthly and unearthly realities in the valley, and the way the meaning of the Western United States is shaped through its infrastructures and mythologies. The series asks: how do we shape the unnameable through the nameable?