Ken Wallace

"My engagement with landscape painting is an interpretation of the human connection to nature. The subject of my interest in landscape is the fertile still water marshes, the source of life, sublime primordial cosmos of the union of land and water. I digress from the traditional landscape horizon perspective viewpoint and spatial relationship to a more compressed intimate scale. The junction where land and water meet offer endless potential for variations of shape, colour and textural interpretations. This subject provides an inspirational arena for exploration and expression in the "act" of painting. Nature becomes paint and paint becomes nature. The paint is intuitively as well as consciously applied to develop the intrinsic elements that are the intersection of the subject and the interpretive manifestation of the painted image. I experience these paintings as a duality of the physical existence of the properties of the painting and metaphorical meaning of the image in our subconscious. These works are not intended to be duplications of specific situations, rather they serve as representations of the idea of nature for contemplation as well as experienced on an aesthetic level.

Fresh water is a life necessity rapidly being recognized as the most valued and sought after resource. It is endangered by pollution, politics and wasteful mismanagement. As a contemporary urban society we tend to distance ourselves from nature. It is my desire that these paintings may serve as reminders, no matter how brief, that human experience is inseparable from nature."

Aqua Illumine #30, Burns Bog
acrylic on canvas, 30 in x 50 in