Artist Statement
Transitory Place
My work in Transitory Place explores the inherent abstract qualities of the natural world. In this series, oil paint is used in thin washes to layer organic forms, conveying unmanicured views of nature. I’m interested in how breaking down tangled masses of material into their simplest forms without further rendering warps the perception of a given environment. This plant-life is used as a vehicle to evoke memory and familiarity, serving in an immediate way to encourage a closer investigation. The synthetic pink in the underpainting is present to varying degrees in each painting, creating a visual push-and-pull as unexpected color combinations clash. By allowing for the paint to mix and run on the surface of the canvas, unique patterns and configurations are mapped out organically.
I compile imagery that I have photographed throughout Wisconsin; selecting and collaging certain visually intriguing elements and inventing others. This results in a completely new interpretation of “place”.
Fundamentally, I critique expected perceptions and traditions of canonical landscape painting. In altering conventional notions of color, materiality, and scale, an emphasis on the relationship between the natural and artificial challenges an easy read of space. These unexpected formal shifts de-center the viewer in relation to the subject. The viewer is drawn to investigate the spaces I am reinventing through abstraction as a new kind of exploration: which may appear tangible at moments but ultimately questions what is required of a painting to be understood as a “landscape”.
