Graduating Exhibition | May 2019
Artist Statement
Composition is everything! The placement of elements on the canvas and the spaces in between, and how they relate to each other in tension and balance, continues to fascinate and stimulate me both as a graphic designer and as a painter. I am interested in artists such as Richard Deibenkorn and Raimonds Staprans, whose abstracted landscapes convey this tension and balance through strong graphic compositions.
This abstract series of six landscapes, was developed from the premise that humans have an innate desire to tame and control the world with fabricated boundary lines and built structures. This pursuit of control creates a man-made footprint with high levels of artificiality and distortion to the landscape. In the end, it may just be a somewhat futile attempt to create secure manageable spaces to defend us against the immense open expanse and the unrelenting force of nature with its unpredictable power and potential destruction.
Perhaps we need to spend a bit more time in the wide-open unmanaged landscape and in the sanctity of its grandeur – or, at least, try and remember to look out of the window occasionally.
