In my latest series of
landscape drawings, beyond|return, I
pay attention to the places where pattern overwhelms itself and breaks down, as
well as the moments when chaos falls into a rhythm. I look at details and see
patterns that stretch back for decades, millennia. They stretch forward too. To
see a pattern fall apart all you really need to do is change perspective, take
longer view, or maybe a closer one.
My drawings begin with
observations. I notice how the landscape shifts around me as I move through it.
I notice how bunches of leaves that start as a group separate out and become
silhouettes of individual leaves, before becoming a group again. When I walk my
dog I notice the interactions between geometric shadows cast by rooftops,
telephone poles, and wires, and the organic shapes cast by trees. I notice that
on trash day there is an extra pattern on the street, a pattern that emerges
and then disappears one day every week.
My observations lead
to plein air drawings and photographs of the landscape. Using opaque and
transparent paints as well as dry media, I create large landscape drawings
based on the observed, drawn, and photographed landscape.
While my motivation -
or impulse - is visual, bringing the groundless aspect of my landscape
drawings to the suburbs speaks of the instability of the stability
seeker's haven, suburbia. I think it also speaks to my own desire for
stability in the form of a house nestled amongst some trees.
I don't have any photos of this new series yet, but here are some of the source images I am working from.
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