Liz Boeder - Artist Statement
When
I paint, I am art; fulfilled by the line, the colors voluminous, dangerous, and
bold. I could say the paintings paint me. Some of my earliest memories are of
drawing, and the magic of bringing feelings, thoughts, impulses to a page
thereby making the invisible visible to the world.
The
process is just as important as the end result. The two are inseparable and
therein lies the essential nature of my work. With this new series of paintings,
the dynamic, physical gesture, the physicality of putting the paint on the
canvas is as important as the color and the resultant form. It is the gesture,
frozen in color and form, that speaks to the architecture of who I am, where I'm
from and the secret mysteries and forgotten truths I share with the collective.
In
seeking a confluence between the geometric forms of structures and the organic
forms of nature, I seek to portray yet another world, a new one at the
intersection of memory and possibility.
I developed this series in response to my sensibilities as a city kid and a poet, to forms, apparent randomness, gestures and visual metaphors that I perceived in the hard edge forms of the city. I have created a new visual language depicting this convergence of the organic and geometric. The resultant forms, unpredictability, gestures and metaphors bring the present moment into a looping, timeless realm. By pulling the paint across the canvas, I attempt to pull the past into the present, creating layers of meaning while placing them in an immediate context. I accost the viewer with symbols both ancient and new, personal and universal, of experiences both shared and unique.