Road maps provide a visual representation of towns, cities, roads, land and water. They are simplified illustrations of the earth’s natural surface or the landscape. The areas are defined by colours and symbols in a legend and represent a variety of things: transportation, boundaries and services. These colours and symbols, even though simplification of actual objects, are conventionally accepted to be true representations. However, for easier legibility, because of the extraordinary scale of the terrain, certain features and markings have been deleted to provide a clear, simplistic view of the landscape. Maps are not benign representations of the landscapes. Beneath the surface of the map there is a specific agenda or purpose outside of its primary use of providing a relatively uncomplicated view of the geography.

Through the elimination and consequent selection of certain map markings, I engage the viewer’s movement through the geography with a different perspective. The viewer is presented with another possible way to read a map. As contrived as this movement is, and regardless of my inventions, the map presents an artificial reality which is nonetheless “true” in certain respects. But, how”truly” and how “falsely” the map represents the actual landscape it purports to describe is an open question. I am using the map as an element in its own recreation and in the creation of new landscapes, however artificial or real they might be.