ARTIST STATEMENT

While working on a series of landscape drawings (Untitled 3561 - 3570) in 2017, a new abstracted approach emerged that re-directed years of my artistic practice. These new drawings focused on my understanding of the primary forms, structures and motions within Nature. I had intended the works (on vellum) as a purely reductive exercise - questioning the relationships of color and form in a minimally expressive manner while acknowledging the primordial spirits within Nature. I had no expectations, yet these new works altered everything for me. It was like finding a new feeling.

Building on these fresh insights I started a series of large-scale paintings on panel. The new paintings weren’t about representation but became a more intimate and emotive exploration of Nature and Time. Leonard Bernstein once said, “Any great work of art revives and re-adapts time and space, and the measure of its success is the extent to which it makes you an inhabitant of that world.” It is my hope that my paintings engage the viewer and provide that place for thoughtful intimacy.

Brad Durham

January 2024