Wading II Painting

I’ve taken impressions of my existence, of imagery in my life, and have transformed them into paintings, using multiple layers of paint, often resulting in blurred image. An overwhelming, mesmerising flow of imagery, a fictitious and contemporary reality. This particular series is based on images of the natural landscape; existing in a blur, as a haze and as a fragment. These blurred images speak of the longing for a landscape - a distant place that we desire, a place that we cannot reach. As we reach the edge of an horizon, another landscape and another horizon appears in the distance. It is not a location that we desire but an idea, a view of where we are not. Traditionally, nature & landscape have presented itself as the truth, the real, the untouched. Nature alludes to notions of being free; whether it is in an outward context, through ownership of land (power, wealth, security) or, on an intimate level, a neutral, raw space of calm. Whatever it is, the dynamic of the relationship of human & nature is a space where the illusion we perceive as reality is exposed. That is, my personal view and connection with the landscape. Through transparent layer upon layer upon layer of paint, these landscapes hold multiple impressions of a particular space. The final product being a dark, moody and imagined space where moments of darkness and light are exposed. It is imagined yet it is real. Through the abstracted nature of the landscapes, what is perceived is only as much as one wishes to see. I question reality and illusion and attempt to blur the boundary between the two entities and create a moment of mute encounter, where things are fluid and perception is mutable. “What we cannot see is infinitely more [important] than what we can see.” Duane Michals