IMPRESSIONIST NATURE PAINTINGS

Originally titled “Canopies,” this ongoing series reflects the trees that surrounded my childhood. However, it wasn’t until I returned home after my own adventures away that I truly noticed them. They were exactly the same as when I left, and their steadfastness helped me realize how much I had changed. Painting this series became a meditative reflection. I used color, repetition, perspective, scale, experimentation, and spontaneous brushmarks to speak to the possibility, freedom, clarity, and understanding I had gained in returning to these trees.

These paintings began in 2019, and I return to them every year in new ways. They are the first paintings I ever did where I finally felt as if I was speaking in my unique artistic voice. I had paused that initial (and very important!) season of learning about paint, kindly invited all the teachers to leave my studio, and I got honest with my hand and my voice as an artist. It was terrifying at first, but quickly thereafter began to feel alive. Instinct, intuition, and rhythmic markmaking became a fluent language of delight within these trees. Paintings grew in scale, taking up space in ways that felt naughty (the audacity!).

This series symbolizes the part of the adventure least spoken about: the part about coming home. Any great hero eventually returns home (just watch every Disney movie ever made! ;)). Home should be a place of safety, comfort, and rest, in preparation for the next adventure- whether it be a small or monumental, these adventures happen all the time. Which means we get to come back home often.

Paintings are created slowly, at the pace of living. They are my studio’s version of home and rest, in between learning new things and more experimental work.

While I return to them again and again, they tend to grow and change as I do- new color palettes, brush work, ideas.

You can purchase originals as they are made, or prints of many past paintings.

Since that first exploration, they are a regular series I return to in the studio. Each time, exploring something different: Size, markmaking, color, or simply the renewed delight in those big ole’ trees.