Abstract
My oil paintings weave a narrative about the human species. I am interested in the space where our proliferation infringes upon ecosystem function. I am fascinated in what makes our species so successful and what that success means for the balance of nature. My paintings often target concepts around environmental transformations attributed to human activities and economies. Visual art provides me the latitude and freedom to explore and communicate these concepts, using a visual language which conveys disparate perspectives; universally and individualistically.
This duality is what I strive for in my work; producing an image that not only speaks a truth from a global perspective, but its’ interpretation may also have differing meaning for individual viewers. I place a lot of emphasis on development of concept. I try to steer the content of each painting to a place that is simply an observation of the world. I explore and express these ideas using metaphors, motion, and space. I use geometry to build an idea into a composition, finding a way to move the viewer in and around the canvas and inviting them to linger on important passages. Movement and energy is always visible in my work, using repetition and ghost images to reverberate key concepts while creating a sense of motion on the surface of the canvas. My work is loose and constructed with many thin washes of paint. The final finish of the work is a combination of detail and outlines of what could be.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.
Recommended Citation
W. Howard Brandenburg,
The Plight of Western Rivers,
62
Nat. Res. J.
151
(2022).
Available at:
https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/nrj/vol62/iss1/8
