The Angry Landscape: New Studies

I like to make art that says something, that follows a concept through different manifestations. The house series, the alphahouse series, and the big girls all spoke about emotions, psychology, and empowerment, hopefully with a sense of dark absurdity. So when I looked at the blank pages of my sketchbook, and considered the equally blank walls of Ripe Art gallery, I knew I wanted to say something, but as to what, I wasn't sure.

I don't believe in writer's block, or painter's block for that matter. It's not a luxury I allow myself, so I plowed ahead, knowing that once I had lines on the page, even if it was absolute crap, I'd have a reference point. And then an idea came. Indulge me for a moment.

After a winter of snowstorms, hail, toppled trees, earthquakes, and flooding, it felt as if the earth was striking back at humanity. Roofs ripped off, rivers in basements, limbs crashing across suburban lawns, buildings reduced to rubble, power lines grounded-- Mother Nature's wrath was everywhere. As I was assembling the top collage of a house in a landscape, a rather mundane image at first, the hedges fell across the page in exciting angles, ones that suggested violence. 'The Angry Hedge' made me laugh, so I played with some other angry landscapes. Having personified emotive houses, it seems a 'natural' extension to now have nature attack us, not unlike killer tomatoes, and it definitely taps into my desire for a more eco-aware consciousness.