Disrupted Landscapes
My current paintings reflect on the impact human beings have had on nature, as well as our disconnection with, and perception of the natural world. I’m interested in expressing how our experiences with nature are becoming increasingly restricted or mediated through virtual substitutions. We see primarily idealized scenery through images on screens or media. It is this distance and artificiality that I draw attention to within my images, seeking to disrupt and subvert illusions about nature and encourage for the actual state of the natural world. Many sources inform my work. I am greatly inspired by the way 19th c. Romantic landscape painters expressed reverence and concern for the wilderness. I also gather ideas from Science Fiction, Literature, and Non-Fiction, such as Nature Futures by Henry Gee and The Once and Future World by J.B. Mackinnon which provide me with insight on current conditions and glimpses of possible futures of our world. I also pull aesthetics and ideas from Pop Art, Surrealism and Abstraction. I work in the style of Representational with Abstraction. My processes typically begins by creating digital composites from source images. This process allows me to apply precise effects such as unnatural colors and patterns that reference man’s technological age and nature’s alteration and tension within it. I also experiment digitally with how much change the landscape can undergo and still remain recognizable. Overall, I aim to create images that are unfamiliar, uncertain, distant, and disconcerting to reflect on the changes occurring within nature. |