The
romantic and majestic landscape paintings of the later 19th century
played a pivotal role in the concept of Manifest Destiny and western
expansion in the United States. These works inspired many to move west
with the promise of a new life in unspoiled lands teeming with abundant
natural resources. The concept of utopia continues in the landscape
genre.
The works from the Rendezvous Series
are comprised of imaginary images, post cards and found landscape
paintings. The landscapes from this series are then sectioned off in
quadrants in a similar fashion to surveyed land. The grids also pertain
to the multitude of grids we use and encounter in our daily lives, such
as the longitude-latitude indications on our GPS, street grids and even
the pixel grid on our computers.
The surface of the
landscapes are then painted on to indicate areas designated for
development and or cut away in parts revealing a plaid, or Tartan
design. This design reflects my Scot-Irish ancestry and communal carbon
footprint and creates a reference to a street grid, an idea influenced
by the work of Piet Mondrian, especially his work following his arrival
in NYC after WWII broke out. The removed sections of the landscapes are
indebted to the process of destruction utilized in the work of Lucio
Fontana. The destruction in this case, however, is systematic.
The found paintings for the Rendezvous Series
inherently embody a historical reference to the origins of the
landscape genre. Even the most common, production line, factory
landscapes found in many homes are simply a diluted commercial
continuation of a long tradition of landscape paintings offering a
window to an unspoiled utopia.
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