New Paintings

Artists

• Adam Sorensen

Statement

Since 2006 my work has explored the subject of landscape painting, both as a craft and as a concept. 19th century romantic painting and Ukiyo-e prints from Japan have been my biggest influences, partially from the technique, but mostly from the context within art history that they were created. The pop sensibilities of the "Floating world" prints and the exuberantly sublime romanticism of painters like Frederic Church and Caspar David Friedrich, provide a backdrop for my own embellished and imagined work.  

The process itself has evolved many different ways. Marks that began experimentally have been honed and repeated, while other pictorial elements have been altogether eliminated. The paintings are composed over long periods of time, reactive of itself, and are executed with methodical and consistent brush strokes. The surface and consistency of the paint are as important as the composition.   

It's from this ever evolving process, my primary influences, and my consistent conceptual subject that these new paintings are best contextualized. The newest element conceptually, are the craggy objects emerging or disintegrating into the water in the foreground. For years my paintings have been landscapes only, bereft of any particular subject or action. I wanted to challenge that static space with a component that felt natural to the setting, yet contradicted the stillness of the setting alone. The push/pull of this object extends to the question of it coming or going, forming or eroding. The ambiguity of the subject is it's crucial feature. This element acts as a subject as well.  An occupier of the once empty space.