A mutation of the word “incognito”, referring to the act of going unrecognized, with the latin plural suffix “ae”: the “unrecognized ones.”

The purpose of “Incognae” is to direct attention to the activity under the soil. When humans disturb soil by tilling and introducing chemical fertilizers and pesticides many of the beneficial microscopic organisms are depleted or eradicated. This hidden collective of organisms creates soil structures allowing plant and tree roots to penetrate the soil more easily, promoting stronger root systems, and healthier growth. Plants and trees that utilize mycorrhiza out compete those that do not. This “unrecognized” part of the ecosystem interacts with approximately 90% of the planet’s flora. Lowly, hidden microorganisms directly impact our food as well as the planet’s enormous biosphere.

In the Kennesaw installation, sixteen forms measuring from 14 to 36 inches in length and from 6 to 24 inches in height, are in various stages of emerging from beneath the ground with the largest forms fully emerged.

The black wooden frame is filled with cryptogamic crust rescued from a future construction site in the area of the Boat Rock woodland in South Fulton County. The cryptogamic crust, being so tiny, and normally underfoot, is in daily reality something “hidden in plain view.” Two interactive devices – magnifying glasses – are placed on each side of the moss table to suggest and encourage close-up inspection of the flora. The normal relationship of the viewer to the moss is changed. No longer under foot, the moss and lichen are framed at counter level and underneath the viewer’s nose. The magnifying glasses not only encourage interaction with the cryptogams, they also emphasize the scale difference between human and flora – microscopic versus macroscopic.

The backroom full of sculpture is set up to create a dialog between viewer and objects. At fifteen inches wide, the portal which is the only access to the sculpture, is too narrow to make a comfortable doorway. The partial view available from the slot hints at some sort of activity or a quality of space much different from the quietly lit room with the frame of moss. What person in a darkened room won’t go to a door, partially open and brightly lit from behind? When the viewer advances through the narrow slot, she/he is confronted with glaring white forms hanging overhead, to each side, and coming from below. The viewer becomes suspended in the middle of the installation, floating in relation to the sculptures. The viewer is now under the artwork’s “nose.” The intent is to create a role reversal – microbiotic become macrobiotic, and the human viewer becomes diminutive.

When my artwork is the size of an adult torso, it asserts it’s presence and feels menacing. Relating to these implicitly sexual forms on a small scale becomes an intimate experience, literally requiring a close look by the viewer. Between the unreal monochromism of the white forms and their small scale, the sexual content has become non- threatening.

The very sexual Venus of Willendorf is small, 4 3/8 inches tall, about the right size to hold in your hand.