Brandywine Garden

About the Work

From the Artist

My subjects have always been landscapes and gardens, which for a brief period were derived and based on gardens in Indian and Persian miniature painting, which have remained influential on my work. Most of the imagery has been developed either while directly observing nature (although mimetic description has never been my goal), or, as in the case of Brandywine Garden, from quick drawings made outside that are combined in the studio or workshop. This was the first time I had worked with screenprint in many years, and I was trying to locate ways to make the flatness of the process take on dimensionality by means of varied surfaces. The print is named for Brandywine Workshop where it was printed, not for any garden associated with the location. Its two-level layered image is an approach I have tried off and on, seeking to convey the complexity of any one site. Sometimes this is done using a diptych or triptych format.
_{—From Brandywine Workshop and Archives records}

The landscape and related natural forms including flowers, bones, and shells have been the primary motifs of my work since entering art school. These subjects offer cues to be translated or transformed. The work is not concerned with conveying a particular place or situation, but rather a sense of organic nature—rhythms, weights, colors, shapes, spaces, forms.

Over time the focus became working on paper, primarily in watercolor, color pencil, oil crayon, pastel, ink and graphite (sometimes combined), and various print media. Eventually this evolved into making books—both as unique works and as printed books in editions. Most often they are landscape panoramas in an accordion format, with each opening meant to function as a coherent unit as well as a fraction of the whole.
—Excerpted from http://www.seniorartists.org/fineres.html, accessed 6-17-2021