“I Know The Place” at Spalding Nix Fine Art
March 17-May 5 2023
My new body of work, “I Know The Place” on view as a part of the spring exhibition Perspectives and Perceptions at Spalding Nix Fine Art
This collection of work is rooted in the exploration and abstraction of nature, combining the representational with the metaphorical and intangible experience of varied landscapes. These paintings represent the compounding of experience as we process varying circumstances, emotions, and memories by utilizing color fields, washes and elements of nature to express this complex layering. These paintings explore the dichotomy and simultaneity of the cycles of nature and lived experience: as new things bloom, something is decaying; as new terrain is explored, a yearning for home grows.
Travel in recent years to the Pacific Northwest and Hawaii have deeply influenced my work, and have come to intertwine with the layered marks and known gestures that express my own home. It has provided a unique contrast to these known environments and subsequent mark making, drawing unique parallels to the way we compile experiences that create our complex perspectives; interweaving memory and possibility to create new paths forward.
Traveling from the dense layers of the tree line where horizons are hidden, a desire to find a path out begins to grow. Similarly, the wide expanse and monolithic scale of the coastline displays the fullness of the horizon and the dizzying implication of new possibilities and the unknown. One does not negate the other, but rather they inform each other, recalling the cycle of being drawn out into new terrain, and receding deep into the comfort of home. An ebb and flow that creates dynamic balance.
