M o l l y B r i g g s
Molly Briggs
Artist’s Statement
Exhibition title: Clearing
My work uses landscape as a means to consider the nature of reality and the ways that desire and expectation shape our perception of the world. I regard the landscape itself as an analogy to painting, and to consciousness, in that landscape is a locus of human consciousness – that is, a thing we make by looking – a picture, as it were.
All of my work deals with longing. Since moving to central Illinois in 2007, my work has dealt with disorder in the landscape. The Clearing series documents fallen branches and trees, uprooted shrubs and landscape waste from sites where the landscape is being cleared for development or as a result of storm damage. Through the process of translation into paint, piles of debris acquire the characteristics of terrain, such as surface, depth and atmosphere – that is, looking into the pile of waste, one sees a painted garden or valley or back yard – another landscape.
Color in my work is used to create optical effects such as retinal fatigue, which highlights a sense of unreality about the image but also heightens the illusion of space by creating optical depth. The works have to be viewed in person for this optical effect to function fully. Both color and texture draw upon the tradition of Japanese Ukiyo-e woodcut prints, images whose conventions were developed to describe “the floating world”, wherein everyday pressures of life were escapable. I am interested in situations in which one knows a subject to be only an illusion, and yet is one persuaded by it.
