For nearly 27 years, the majestic untouched landscapes and natural wonders of the Pacific Northwest have greatly informed my creative sensibilities. Engagement with my immediate natural surroundings has fostered a preoccupation and fascination with the unknown, the sublime and the celestial. As an artist, I attempt to bring aspects of all these things, our unseen realities, our sense of time, memory and place into a visual context. My process involves researching, writing, drawing, making, looking and creating anew.
Each body of my work often times represents just one image or concept that has captivated my attention. My interpretation of the image is then expanded upon and combined with past themes found in my work. The integration of concepts, many deriving from science and its symbols, poses a challenge for me and creates a historic and self referential thread which is a large part of my process.
Most recently, I have been investigating event horizons – the point of no return surrounding a black hole. It is the point at which the gravitational pull becomes so great as to make escape impossible. The concept behind the title of the show is intended to act as a metaphor between the process of their making and with life itself.
Generally, I am most inspired by symbols found in astronomy, physics and alchemy that, by way of my creative interpretation, have come to reflect the seemingly illogical and arbitrary order inherent in today’s uncertain world. The texture, depth and complexity of the surfaces of my paintings imply realms of the physical and the celestial, while the scientific symbolism suggests the accurate and the quantifiable.
Elise Wagner, 2012
Elise Wagner Artist Talk September 15 at 2 p.m.