View slideshow by click an image below

While researching the historical ramifications of land enclosure, I was cognizant of my place within the larger genre of landscape painting. Sketch of a Tree places my freeform, nature/culture watercolors alongside en-plein-air sketches of trees copied from the celebrated masters, such as Caspar David Friedrich, J.M.W. Turner, and Thomas Cole, who were prominent during the Romantic Period, influencing concepts of the ideal landscape (even trickling down to why we maintain manicured lawns today). I used technology to recreate the vital and immediate sketches of the masters, while mirroring the removed distance from nature I experience on a day-to-day basis. Technological advancements have also sped up the destruction of woodlands, post-industrial revolution. A pencil sketch of a spruce tree by Friedrich has been re-represented through the process of scanning, vectorizing, and using a computer connected to a drawing machine equipped with a gold pen. Recreating this sketch, following the tradition known in art history as an ‘after,’ pays homage to the concept of ‘Liber Studiorum,’ a tradition where artists and landscape designers shared ideal imagery and allowed for the reinterpretation and creation of their own representations of picturesque and beautiful landscapes. Gold features prominently in several of my artworks, drawing a connection to the rectangle frames that enshrine master artists’ works in museums. Read more…