"Mapping Series: Red White and Blue, Does It Change the Work, If I am Dominican?", Acrylic on New York City subway map, 33" x 25", 2011 (Collection of the artist).

In Lisette Morel's recent "Mapping Series," each shamanic abstract layer alludes to the passage of time. Thus, in her work, time is documented and the viewer is forced to consider his/her own personal place in time.

Equally, in Morel's work, the idea of repetition is also a vehicle for creation. These rhythmic gestural reiterations of motifs are a practice that Morel employs to open the viewer's mind to oscillating states of consciousness whereby her audience encounters blissful, meditative, and ritualistic moments. For Morel, repetition is present in the accumulation and the physicality of her work(s). Fascinated with each mark, Morel's process is a tedious and engrossing method, mapping and following each repetitive gesture, mark, and gesticulation, which documents her step-by-step movement across the pictorial surface.

As a rule, most maps are a visual representation of an area traditionally used for navigation, documenting territory, population and/or changes to regions, connecting the presence of humankind with nature throughout the course of history. But maps can also suggest any space -- real or imagined.

Morel's "Mapping Series" represents an ongoing body of work, which specifically utilizes the surfaces of collected or found maps; either relative to Morel's present physical-occupancy of a particular space; her travels, or re-documenting her parents' journeys throughout their native country: The Dominican Republic. With Google declaring the end of paper maps, these obsolete items have become precious documents of the past to which she applies Red, White, and Blue hues; thereby, symbolically connecting and amalgamating the United States of America and the Dominican Republic's ("national") flags' colors.

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