The Twelve Winds is a series of recent paintings and works on paper inspired by a 2019 residency at Res Artis member Hôtel Sainte Valière in Southern France, the collection speaks to the poetry of losing, then re-situating oneself in unfamiliar landscapes. This is an experience that requires subjects to traverse preconceived, or projected notions of particular places and to reconstitute them into their lived reality. This reality is often one that exceeds expectation and imagination.
Hôtel Sainte Valière is a world where time is slowed and the evocative landscapes of art’s masters sprawl. In this landscape the rhythm of art history rustles through the long grass. To lose oneself in the vastness of nature is a Romantic vision and this is no less significant now than it was in the 19th Century. Now, the power of the landscape is heightened by the experience of standing in the footsteps of all the artists who have gazed upon the same scenes, and by the gravitas of becoming a part of the art historical lineage of their rendering - on canvas, on paper. There is an unapologetic indulgence in immersing oneself in another world, where fields of wildflowers stretch to the mountains. Hours spent drawing, trying to capture the exquisite power of ‘The Twelve Winds’ rustling through the landscapes and their history. There is more to a landscape than that which can be seen. An experience of place is a lyrical dialogue between what is beheld and what is felt, between the past and the present moment.
Hôtel Sainte Valière is a world where time is slowed and the evocative landscapes of art’s masters sprawl. In this landscape the rhythm of art history rustles through the long grass. To lose oneself in the vastness of nature is a Romantic vision and this is no less significant now than it was in the 19th Century. Now, the power of the landscape is heightened by the experience of standing in the footsteps of all the artists who have gazed upon the same scenes, and by the gravitas of becoming a part of the art historical lineage of their rendering - on canvas, on paper. There is an unapologetic indulgence in immersing oneself in another world, where fields of wildflowers stretch to the mountains. Hours spent drawing, trying to capture the exquisite power of ‘The Twelve Winds’ rustling through the landscapes and their history. There is more to a landscape than that which can be seen. An experience of place is a lyrical dialogue between what is beheld and what is felt, between the past and the present moment.