These works individually and collectively seek to evoke a sense of quiet and serenity, and capture the universal yet intimate experience of specific landscape typologies, through use of color, day-light-time, and sense of movement or stillness. The horizon line plays an important role serving as an anchor within the image, and additionally in several paintings provides a datum for continuity between the image set.
I began with a series of abstracted color studies, created as digital images, which are based on a collection of landscape photographs. These are labeled based on “time of day” or “light descriptions” in an attempt to categorize and group the photos into series.
(Above) A series of digital color studies taken from photographs (from left to right): night/dusk/daytime, stormy palette, sunset palette, sunset color study for individual painting.
Each painting is the culmination of many hours, days, and years spent observing daily or seasonal patterns of my immediate landscape. For example, the oil painting “Urban Lights: blue orange grey” comes from many cycling journeys through the heart of New York City up to the Palisades in New York and New Jersey. Often times these trips begin early - as dawn stretches and glows across the horizon; the journey then ends in quiet dusk with the backdrop of racing beams of light passing from all directions. This painting captures the multifaceted energy of the city and connection to elements of the natural world. It provides the opportunity for quiet, stillness, and reflection amongst the hectic frenzy of urban movement and life.
The series includes abstracted scenes covering a spectrum from urban to deep forest. In each there are lyrical moments which speak to life and human connection. A horizon line across the works provides a consistent datum, and indicates the fundamental connection between even the most disparate landscapes.
