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Forest Song Book, 2003
4" X 8"
Oil & enamel& pastel |
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Celestial Light, 2003
4" X 8"
oil & enamel |
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Eleni Smolen
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The earlier work (1997-1999) is on gessoed paper and, for the
most part,
incorporates a number of mediums in any one painting – the
most prominent being
oil, enamel, ink, graphite and oil pastel. Around 2000 I started
to work on a
series of uniform-size canvasses (44" x 64") utilizing
the same multiple
mediums. The canvasses became lighter and more open in mood and
quite obviously, less
abstract than the works on paper. They are my botanical inventions –
definitely not representational but no wholly abstracted either.
All the work,
regardless of mediums, surfaces or formats, relates to the natural
world and her
processes of restoration and renewal (despite great odds). I subscribe
to Edward
O. Wilson's concept of biophilia, which basically proposes that
mankind's
affinity to the natural world is innate or genetically coded within
us. Wilson
calls the natural world" …the refuge of the spirit,
remote, static, richer even
than human imagination."
At present I am painting on large sheets of masonite (4' x 8')
with multiple
mediums while the photography continues to explore the natural
world around me
in upstate New York. |
