ARTIST STATEMENT
This series of paintings and prints were inspired by experiences of the land (landscape) encompassing my rural childhood home and express my concern for climate change and local environmental degradation by way of farming culture. I interpreted the landscape motif (as a painting and cultural genre) through abstraction, by reassembling fragmented photographic images of this particular area through projection, and then applying layers of drawing, painting and printing in an intuitive process. Furthermore, my approach was to subvert the way in which landscape or “nature” was represented in painting by creating large-scale works that combined the convention of epic-scale landscape paintings with the language of abstraction. My approach to creating the imagery in this manner was intended to confront the viewer with an unconventional form (a modern interpretation) not usually associated with traditional landscape painting.
Nature, or the land-as it is commonly referred to-is regarded as property, a commodity to be used by people and coveted by those who do not own a piece of it. Even when set aside for protection, it has already been fragmented from an environmental and cultural perspective. The land exists as both a physical place and as a idea, which reflects our actions and attitudes towards it. The framing of landscape in historical art, such as the Hudson River School and Transcendentalist movements, depicted the land as a romanticized scene, “unspoiled” and as a sort of magical place, lost in time. The intention for this series was to explore the existential tension between the idea of the romanticized landscape as a fantasized image of Nature with its perceived value as as a means of commodified production and utility. Essentially, the landscape today may be experienced as an unnatural, lack-luster substitute from its original form. My work presents a representation of it as a symbolic artifact and through a personal narrative of displacement.
Copyright Anne Rynearson 2026.
All rights reserved. Unauthorized use is prohibited
.All rights reserved. Unauthorized use is prohibited