03.06.06 Natasha Mayers Art Exhibit in Portland
STATE OF WAR: ARTIST’S STATEMENT by Natasha Mayers
To express my sadness and frustration, outrage and uneasiness in these uncertain times, I am painting a world in chaos. I am making models of what the present looks and feels like to me and what the consequences of our actions are likely to be.
The world is the rural Maine landscape I know, but something is wrong in vacationland. There are disruptions (explosions, craters, cracks, changes from aerial to panoramic views, and sudden shifts in scale) and intrusions of war machinery into our backyards. The viewer can drive around the bomb blasts, exploding moose, sea urchins, and lobsters, visit the lighthouses and fields of sheep, and maybe begin to realize the impact of war on ordinary people. An empathetic response requires imagination.
I am playing games in some of these paintings, creating colorful, fast, pinball/video game versions of reality. I am playing with fire and arrows, planes and tanks. I am driving race-car fast around curves, following road signs and signals, trying to avoid danger, and seeking some understanding of how we can wage “endless war”.
I think of these as maps, subjective, intuitive, emotional, inaccurate maps, a bridge between the abstract and real world. Some are generalized, some are more specific to Maine. I invite the viewer to both get lost and find a way out.
Read MoreTo express my sadness and frustration, outrage and uneasiness in these uncertain times, I am painting a world in chaos. I am making models of what the present looks and feels like to me and what the consequences of our actions are likely to be.
The world is the rural Maine landscape I know, but something is wrong in vacationland. There are disruptions (explosions, craters, cracks, changes from aerial to panoramic views, and sudden shifts in scale) and intrusions of war machinery into our backyards. The viewer can drive around the bomb blasts, exploding moose, sea urchins, and lobsters, visit the lighthouses and fields of sheep, and maybe begin to realize the impact of war on ordinary people. An empathetic response requires imagination.
I am playing games in some of these paintings, creating colorful, fast, pinball/video game versions of reality. I am playing with fire and arrows, planes and tanks. I am driving race-car fast around curves, following road signs and signals, trying to avoid danger, and seeking some understanding of how we can wage “endless war”.
I think of these as maps, subjective, intuitive, emotional, inaccurate maps, a bridge between the abstract and real world. Some are generalized, some are more specific to Maine. I invite the viewer to both get lost and find a way out.
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