Artist's Statement: 2007 Solo Exhibition
Tree Series:Copper Harbor II
© 2007
The work for this show explores the differences in how I view places and settings both familiar and unfamiliar to me. As a resident of the upper Midwest my entire life, I have always felt very connected to and “comfortable” with northern landscapes. My 2005 show investigated the essence of place, scenes from “up north,” and the landscape genre. While previous exhibits have always contained subject matter culled from my travels, my experiences traveling throughout New Zealand in March 2006 fed me with much more than new imagery. It gave me a sense of the dichotomy a visitor experiences when seeing a variation on a familiar theme. This exhibition includes paintings from both viewpoints — that of a visitor and of a resident.
Many questions engage me as I wrestle with the obvious contrasts and similarities in my subject matter choices. Do we see our surroundings differently or express them differently if we are a resident or if we are a visitor? What are the elements that cause us to recognize and embrace an image as familiar to us? Likewise, what are the elements that quickly define an image as 'not from around here?'
Touring New Zealand, I experienced a landscape different from any place I had ever traveled before. My enjoyment of the outdoors was nourished with hiking, biking, sea kayaking, and exploring as much of the countryside as could be packed into three weeks. A trip up onto the Fox Glacier was one of many highlights. As a Minnesota resident, I am quite familiar with snow and ice, but have rarely painted winter scenes. As a visitor, I was struck by the beauty, structure, surface and colors of the glacial ice and mountainous setting. It was a challenge to paint the feel and temperature of cold ice as in the watercolor “Sanctuary” or the oil “Chasm” no matter how familiar or foreign the place.
It was the “Tree Series,” a number of small, square oil paintings, which really clarified the theme of this exhibition. I found myself drawn to very similar subject matter from very different locations. Essentially, I can find interesting tree shapes in landscape settings with water everywhere! Following my trip to New Zealand, I visited a familiar vacation place from my youth — Michigan's Upper Peninsula and Copper Harbor. The “Tree Series” explores the contrasting surface of the bodies of water, shapes of trunks, texture and colors of foliage and bark — in the context of their location.
My paintings continue to explore some of the same elements and subjects as did the watercolors and oils from my 2005 show. The scale of the paintings is small to medium in size, personal and deliberate. I still focus in on patterns, shapes, and compositional structure. My interest in highlighting the abstract components and tensions within a very representational and familiar image remains strong.
In my last three exhibitions I have intentionally looked for ways to make the ideas in my paintings more accessible. I have again collaborated with Roxann Reisdorf to create an interactive work to accompany the show.
I would like to acknowledge a 2007 residency at the Ragdale Foundation in Lake Forest, IL, which was critical to the development of this body of work.