Magnolia Laurie
My current work is based in painting, yet I incorporate
installation and drawing to explore the landscape, vantage
point, the human instinct to build, and our complex relationship
to the land. Free of people, the paintings depict gestures of the
built environment as both literal evidence and metaphor for
human impact.
The images often draw from history and current events,
recomposing the remnants of forest fires, aerial views of
flooded communities, and the billowing plumes of oil train
derailments. These are events that have an impact on all of us
in some way or another, although our opinions and views of
them are shaped by our proximity, our needs, our losses, and
our gains.
I work in sheer layers of oil paint that slip back and forth
between gesture and illusion. The resulting images reveal a
history of actions and erasures. The paintings evolve through
a process of making and unmaking, much like the changing
landscape and our evolving human history.