“Nothing could be more lonely and nothing more beautiful than the view at nightfall across the prairies to these huge hill masses, when the lengthening shadows had at last merged into one and the faint after-glow of the red sunset filled the west.”
The prairies tend to be neglected in landscape art, and art in general. I hope to change that decisively with an ongoing series of abstract-like prairie landscapes, originating in the digital realm, and realizing tangible form in a series of art prints.
My aim is to bring new life and original feeling to the landscapes of the prairies and rolling farmland, beginning the creative process with digital tools and all the rich potential they have to re-imagine prairie art into a more modern, abstract feel.
Personally, as an artist I find prairies and rolling farmland to be some of the most compelling subjects for landscape art.
Driving through rolling farmland is a sensual delight. One experiences the cadence, meter and rhyme of all the natural visual textures at a much more heightened level of sensitivity than if we walk. At a walking pace, the changing rhythms don’t dance the way they do when one smoothly flows through the landscape in a car.
“I was born on the prairies where the wind blew free and there was nothing to break the light of the sun. I was born where there were no enclosures.”
The long sightlines bring a sense of peace and well-being, quite unlike the city, where buildings crowd the view, and the average optical range is much more close-up. Obvious when you think about it, but, as many who travel out of the city on summer weekends to country homes and cottages will agree, profound in feeling.
There’s a reason so many love to take to the wide open spaces after a week in the city. Even if they love the city!
A lot of very static, formulaic art has been created around a kind of desolate flatness and unchanging character of land and sky, with each generally occupying half of the view, and very little counterpoint of texture or rhythm. Many are the modern offspring of Mark Rothko’s color field paintings, which are both more original and sophisticated.
My own work brings a different set of natural rhythms into prairie landscape art, and tends to feature more flowing terrain. I have a much more lyrical take on prairie farmland.
Rolling hills impart a grand sweeping rhythm to my art, and tend to invoke the feel of classical music, with it’s cyclical undulation and graceful flow of line. And I find clusters and streaks of vegetation in farm country to be very painterly looking, like broad brush strokes and dabbled or even poured paint. Far from being uninteresting, rolling farmland and plains have their own rich tapestries of texture.
My working method is perfectly suited to this subject matter.
It originates with the smooth flow of reflections and refractions in 3 dimensional digital forms, very glass-like. It’s a perfect source for prairie art to take form and shape from. The graceful lines of reflections, once they are digitally finessed, translate naturally into the landscape of rolling hills with subtle ebb and flow.
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Rolling farmland and the prairies are such magnificent places. I am working steadily to re-imagine prairie art into a more contemporary, abstract art form.