In conjunction with my paintings being featured in the “Emerging National IX” annual, curated by Susan Welsh, Director of the Macon Museum of Arts and Sciences, I had the distinct pleasure of speaking with museum curator and painter, Kristy B. Edwards about the selected works.
These paintings, a part of the (sequoia) series, were made between January 2020 and January 2021. Each work uses the concept of locus amoenus as its starting point. Locus amoenus is a literary tool which describes a idealized, safe place, a place containing trees, grass, water. It is at once a green world, a feminine place, an expression of a universal spirituality that is nature. Like a hortus conclucus, or enclosed garden, it is also a paradox in that nature is not, can not be, enclosed or walled. All of the paintings in the four series made in 2020 offer us a locus amoenus. They also notify and remind us of the artifice of the picture plane, of the contained garden, of the idea of safety. They highlight our attempts to contain both nature, our fears, and passions as well as our desire to contain life, beauty, whatever perceptions of demesne or dominion we might hold.
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LIVE chat/video with curator + painter, Kristy B. Edwards: here
