oil on Stonehenge paper
19″ x 76″ x 0″
Inspired by the panoramic format, monochromatic colors, and the dreamy, atmospheric quality of Chinese hand scrolls, I make oil paintings on paper. But rather than the idealized scenes of the Chinese paintings, I am responding to the environmental and ecological changes to the landscape caused by natural disasters, human intervention, and the passage of time. The scene may be beautiful, but there is always an element of unease. Often using news photos as sources, I paint the landscape, then disrupt the image to indicate the place where things go wrong. The incursion can be a subtle dash of color, or a more violent stroke or erasure. I use a mostly black and white palette to evoke the memory and nostalgia of vintage photographs, while small touches of vermilion echo the bright red seals on the scroll paintings. The destabilization or interruption of what is happening in the paintings reflects my growing uncertainty about what is happening on the larger canvas of our world.
