Cultivating the Perceived

I find kinship with both John Ruskin and Thomas Moran, whose foundational philosophies approached truth in art by knowing their physical place in nature as fully as possible. Moran’s depiction of American sublimity was not merely a response to the great artistic tradition; his sublimity was a specific response to his own time and place. Ruskin believed it was the relationship of parts, rather than the parts themselves that should be the focus. The aim of the landscape painter was to piece together a sought-after impression of a place, capable of producing an answer to elusive truth.

This series is a grappling with the landscape in Iowa where I had been searching a space of repose. There is a reason for discovering a previously unimagined space, where the data of my senses coalesces. The paintings are an amalgmation of landscape as portrait translated to handmade cornhusk paper, created from the landscape itself. They have been impacted and embodied through experience to answer the question, “Where is the profundity of my existence?”
Drewelowe Gallery Iowa City, Iowa 2017