"I inventory collections of various kinds, my possessions, contents of people's handbags, cars, and refrigerators. My travels are chronicled by drawing all that comes and goes. Rendered in colored pencil and set in rows on scrolls of paper 1' wide and up to 5' in height, the miniaturized objects create pictographic texts.
I have also been documenting tax expenditures. This includes war apparatus as well as at sites paid for by public funds: e.g. maintenance materials for a park, and the NYC virology lab. Most recently I have drawn the contents of the laboratories on an oceanographic research vessel as scientists collected water and sediment samples along the Pacific Northwest coast.
In addition an ongoing piece records war casualties. Wrapped in the Flag depicts coalition troop losses, and consists of 16 scrolls of rows of small silhouetted figures (over 4000), each filled with a portion of the appropriate national flag, then labeled with the soldier's name / age. Collateral Damage documents civilian casualties, mainly Iraqi. 17 scrolls of pencil silhouettes are filled in with white pencil, many identified by name/ age.
Almost 18,000 figures have been drawn-a fraction of the reality." Elise Engler, 2008
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