Galería Omar Alonso
Puerto Vallarta, Mexico
April 21, 2021 - May 15, 2021
A walk in the park: Reconstructed Landscapes
Land…the possession of, control of, and exploitation of…is a
consistent preoccupation of all countries. Less, or unimportant to governing
bodies, is the ecological balance and preservation of our precious Earth.
As a young artist studying the life of early landscape
painters, I remember reading about how the Railroad Barons of the late 1800s in
the USA, searching for a means to protect their investment, paid artists, like
Albert Bierstadt, to paint the West in such a way as to inspire a migration of
people who settled in indigenous lands in search of opportunity.
Would we recognize the Earth as it was back then? So much
has changed.
Based on the traditional landscape painting, the work of the
Reconstructed Landscape Series gives
evidence to the process of a landscape created, then destroyed or
deconstructed, to be rebuilt again in a distinct form.
The idea of loss and a point of no return are the underlying
concepts of this series. The process and end result of these works demonstrate
a simple analogy to our relationship with the natural environment ─ we
cannot go back in time to undo the damage that has already been done; we can
only move forward and put back together the pieces to reconstruct as best we
can.
As agent of the destructive process in the Reconstructed Landscape Series, I remind
myself I am in part, the cause of the actual environmental crisis we face.
Through the process of this work the destroyed landscapes
are put back together once again, each a record of its own destruction and reconstruction.
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