Wilderness
Artist Statement- Keith Crowley

The barrier road provides a connection to the landscape which unfolds before the surging masses.  These paintings grow out of my daily interactions with open space -- the land in between departures and destinations.  So much is still left unseen; this begins a wilderness.

The process of digging through the snapshots feels like ghost-hunting.
Snapshots are the remnants that become references for these paintings which can only suggest these solitary experiences.  Photographs are effective in distilling movement, helping the painting achieve placidity. This is also a stage in the process when useful accidents most frequently occur in the image-making.  The camera lens generalizes shapes, reducing visual hierarchies, unifying the remembered experience.  

Painting enhances human metaphor.  Multiple translucent layers of color create aberrations and inconsistencies that reflect individual hand-made decisions in the process.  This layering of paint involves a sequential system of weaving complimentary hues on top of one another through a series of homogeneous glazes.  These traditional processes are tied to a long history of allegorical paintings.

The repetitive cycles of haste produce meditative stillness. This contradiction is the basis of my exploration of color and its relationship to the familiar yet elusive landscape.  The work continues when I am alone, moving alongside strangers.