Emma Webster

Region: Pacific Coast

Website: http://www.emmawebster.com

City / State: Encinitas, CA

I stage maquettes of hypothetical landscapes with printed photos, stickers, painted sculptures, and architectural models. The stilllife paintings become pastiche sets for the idyllic. Nature as stage hearkens to romantic notions of landscape painting as a conduit for the transcendent. Here, though, posed wildlife is fraught with artifice. The trees are plastic, lit by a flashlight and seen from a contrived frontal vantage point. The theatrical staging of these idealized landscapes questions assumptions surrounding character agency, allegory, and spectator.