These landscapes were created as part of a class project and group show for Frank Ryan’s UCLA Extension class. I started this work as a series of watercolors depicting the “modern landscape” of the Los Angeles River. I was originally drawn to the paradox of the landscape. Once a beautiful part of nature, the river now functions as a storage area for massive shipping containers, which are evocative and impressive in their own right, but replace the former beauty of the natural river.
After a trip to Lake Michigan and it’s surrounding waterways that summer, I continued to explore ideas about water and our impact on it. In the paintings of Lake Macatawa, the paradox is hidden. The natural, original beauty is apparently maintained but, unseen, the lake water is also badly contaminated from years of industrial and agricultural waste. Our relationship to the earth and the increasing strain on the natural world, and our water resources, is a subject I want to continue to explore.
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