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Suzanne Skon - Artist Statement My current work reflects my interest in the confluence of culture and nature. This series of paintings, entitled "Roots Ever Green," literally and metaphorically represent several dualities: culture versus nature, the fleeting versus the timeless and what is above the surface versus what is below. The work also speaks to gender-related themes and the shared human experience. I am interested in how visual relationships reveal themselves if you are paying attention. These paitnings exlore the relationship and tension between natural grace or beauty and imposed or cultural interpretations of these ideals. They also reflect my interest in the cyclical process of origin and decline and preserving and paying homage to our natural world. The work juxtaposes the regional with the global and the present with the past: the wildflower species are specific to North America (many native to Minnesota), while the ironwork designs reference cultures around the world (France, Italy, India) and different periods of time (medieval, Renaissance, turn of the century). The materials and processes I used in creating these paintings also reflect juxtaposition. The "hardness" of the ironwork images is imposed upon the fragility of tissue and rice papers and the childlike processes of cutting, pasting and blowing paint through a straw contrast with the more technique-oriented and "adult" manipulation of oil paint. This work supports my view of nature as the essence or principal that informs the workings of our world. |
