Some views of nature are simply so powerful and sculpturally rich as to resist conversion into the illusionistic. They require gestures equally large and physical to reproduce, not the actual scene, but your encounter of the scene. My desire is to evoke the physical presence and emotional experience of extraordinary places and this often takes me into three-dimensional and abstract forms.
I compose by manipulating various papers, paint stained or plain. The folds and creases of these materials, edges both torn and cut, and the real shadows and highlights the folds make and reflect – all of these replicate the forms forms and terrestrial forces of the planet's creation. They are landscapes, but they are neither romantic nor sentimentalized. They seek to capture time and the elemental.
Over the years have returned again and again to rock, fire, ice and water, nature’s most extreme instruments for shaping the Earth. Each time my approach is a little different. Each time I acquire a deeper sense of the Earth as a living, evolving wonder. I continue to explore these subjects ever hopeful that, this time, I will get it right, catch it whole.
- Anne Elliott