Overture is a series of mixed-media landscapes and floral images exploring transformation, mystery, and the changing character of the natural world. Towering clouds, luminous water lilies, and white peonies set against deep darkness become different expressions of related ideas: beauty and vulnerability, growth and decay, what is revealed and what remains hidden. The works are based on recognizable places and forms, while also suggesting the immense forces of weather, water, light, and time. The series is rooted in the rural landscapes of my childhood and connected to the sublime tradition of nineteenth-century landscape painting, in which light, weather, water, and sky could inspire awe. I bring that tradition into the present through a contemporary process that combines photography with oil paint, ink, pastel, and matte mediums on birch panels. Photographic detail meets visible brushwork, drips, and splatters, creating a tension between what has been documented and what has been transformed. The title Overture suggests the opening of a larger experience. These works invite viewers into a world of shifting light, dark water, gathering clouds, and fading flowers – a world shaped by beauty, uncertainty, and continual change.
