CANVAS

by Shauna Werner

My work constructs environments that are immersive, in which the viewer feels surrounded by or within the work. It uses subjects and formal elements that are familiar in landscapes but are arranged in a way that challenges and abstracts what is known. It is an attempt to recreate a representation of the feelings that natural places can evoke, those of vastness, of obscurity, of something inexplicably appealing about the ways light hits natural forms.

This also reworks how the landscape has traditionally been depicted, on a flat and rectangular canvas. The cloth shapes mimic but abstract organic landscape forms, furthering the discontinuity while still being reminiscent of something familiar.

The use of yellows, reds, and other earth tones might recall the impression light on a landscape, reminding the viewer of a specific experience or alternately providing ambiguity of setting if there is not already a familiar association.

To me, the physicality and action of fracturing and piecing back together these forms is the impact of the viewer upon the landscape. The moment a place is seen and stepped into, it loses the memory of the unknown.