artist statement

The thoughts that guide my practice as a visual artist are uncomplicated. My own personal muse is the pervasive awareness that the only thing that is consistent is change.

My intention is to convey the fleeting impression of change… to capture an ephemeral moment, which admittedly, all pictures do …and to attempt to charge these portraits of a time, of a place, with some of the poignancy felt in connection with the scene, the day, the activity.

I am captivated by the concept of change as viewed in nature; the change of season, the brief period when the day changes from evening to dusk, the sunlight to gloom, the change of light as the wind sends clouds across the sun…

And I am captivated by the concept of change in a philosophical sense. As I paint I am persistently and keenly aware that these evanescent moments are reflective of the temporary nature of all that we are, the impermanence of life itself and of all that is dear. My intention is to infuse my paintings with the notion of this duality, of the feelings both joyful and melancholy that arise with this admission, the knowledge that that which is not permanent is made all the more compelling …

My paintings are an emotional as well as an aesthetic response to the scene. They are not spontaneous creations but carefully considered expressions of my reaction to the landscape, rich in atmosphere. I hope to create a poem in paint to what is both enduring and transient.

Laura Culic