Emma Webster
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.