Aerial Landscapes - Studio Installation, acrylic on canvas, 2010These aerial landscapes are my first completed paintings of the new year. I ended 2009/started off 2010 working on cityscapes with people, but deciding a few weeks ago to switch to abstracts of aerial landscapes. I've been kicking around this idea for a while - combing my environmental concerns with my interests in maps and travel.
This series explores the colors and shapes of urban and rural landscapes from above. These paintings are based on photographs I took from an airplane of the Lake St. Clair and St. Clair River along the Canadian/Michigan border while while flying from New York. I also like the idea of painting an impression of a place I've never physically been - just flew over. They were painted mostly lying flat on a table so that I worked above the canvas as I painted them.
While these images relate to a universal travel experience (looking out an airplane window), they also draw attention to water in our environment - something that is abundant but is becoming a much more valuable and scarce commodity around the world. Living near Lake Michigan and in the Great Lakes region highlights water's ubiquity and it's impact on our day-to-day lives - whether we live in the city or rural area. It's also something that we often take for granted.