Mary Armstrong
"In the beginning, the decision to become a painter is a leap of faith. I began to get interested in using Maps as the launching point for my work following a semester teaching painting at Venice International University. Initially the mixed media work adhered quite closely to the original imagery of the maps. After spending time drawing in the desert (where I noticed grids laid out in order to “fix” ownership of what was really empty wild land), I began to think about another way to “Map” space. I began to impose grid structures on atmosphere: sky/air. The work lifted off from low rows of dark mountain forms and soared up. The linear perspective of the lines is etched back in to the wax and oil mixture. I hoped the lines would rhythmically set up a pulse, moving the eye up, down and in and out of the pictorial space. I worked on paper in multiple panels. I just kept adding another piece of paper and expanding the space laterally, to open it up and out, to stretch the panoramic aspect and to explore the idea of the infinite and the frame. After a while, I finally resolved to go back to a single rectangle. The great challenge would be to discover how to make a dynamic space within such a definite and finite structure. The answer was to push the space as far back from the frame as possible. But that meant finding the foreground forms from which that deep space could move. I finally landed the idea of using cloud shapes (which remind me of map shapes etc). Now I hope that the patterns and rhythms of the cloud shapes in the foreground will position the viewer slightly above the earth, in that sandwich of Earth’s atmosphere that forms and sustains all that exists. It is a constant struggle to reconcile the physical and metaphysical (solid mass and atmosphere) and to establish a dynamic visual space where they will exist together.
"In the beginning, the decision to become a painter is a leap of faith. I began to get interested in using Maps as the launching point for my work following a semester teaching painting at Venice International University. Initially the mixed media work adhered quite closely to the original imagery of the maps. After spending time drawing in the desert (where I noticed grids laid out in order to “fix” ownership of what was really empty wild land), I began to think about another way to “Map” space. I began to impose grid structures on atmosphere: sky/air. The work lifted off from low rows of dark mountain forms and soared up. The linear perspective of the lines is etched back in to the wax and oil mixture. I hoped the lines would rhythmically set up a pulse, moving the eye up, down and in and out of the pictorial space. I worked on paper in multiple panels. I just kept adding another piece of paper and expanding the space laterally, to open it up and out, to stretch the panoramic aspect and to explore the idea of the infinite and the frame. After a while, I finally resolved to go back to a single rectangle. The great challenge would be to discover how to make a dynamic space within such a definite and finite structure. The answer was to push the space as far back from the frame as possible. But that meant finding the foreground forms from which that deep space could move. I finally landed the idea of using cloud shapes (which remind me of map shapes etc). Now I hope that the patterns and rhythms of the cloud shapes in the foreground will position the viewer slightly above the earth, in that sandwich of Earth’s atmosphere that forms and sustains all that exists. It is a constant struggle to reconcile the physical and metaphysical (solid mass and atmosphere) and to establish a dynamic visual space where they will exist together.
