Crossings Solo Exhibit August 2019

Crossings is a body of work I began four years ago, when I was searching for new ways to express a more personal and sensory experience of the elements we call landscape. In these crossings to Ireland, I also learned to travel between realism and abstraction, and discovered the unforeseen ways in which a powerful place can shape and call forth new work. I’ve returned frequently over the past few years to the coast of northwestern Ireland. My fascination with the Irish coastal landscape is in its mutability, where elements shift and transform in unexpected ways. The fluidity of these constantly shifting elements is an invitation to try and catch an image between states. In working with the riddle of this Irish imagery, I am also working with larger concepts of presence and absence, and presence that is felt even if unseen. Most of this work was created from memory and is therefore an inner landscape of my own devising. I invite you to step out of time with me and into this rare and special place, as I recreate the essence of its elements using paint, wax, dried pigments, Irish sand, and peat ash from a homely hearth far away. ~ Cindy Stapper August 2019