Strange Surreal Landscape Painting

The first thing I remember trying to draw from my own mind was a jungle, lush and perfect with a waterfall and a shining pool. It may be a surprise, but at 5yrs old it came out less like a fantasy and more like a circle with some lines.

Since then I’ve fought to capture nature. People don’t particularly interest me to paint. But nature and how we as humans interact with it is fascinating, especially living in the anthropocene where our modern technology is always either swallowing something up or being swallowed.

I think traveling so much at a young age had a big effect on me. I think as we grow, we populate our minds with the worlds we experience and imagine until we’ve created the central home of our spirit. I spent my childhood exploring jungles, crossing swelling, cobalt seas, and playing games with endless horizons. I came to populate my own spirit with these vast distances and alien worlds.

I’ve worked so hard to paint real landscapes, but I’m creating my own little collection of landscapes based on the things I’ve experienced and the world within myself. This is my first piece in this series: "I Wander, Searching for Nothing":

The vast distances I feel between myself and other people.

My desire to be seen and understood but without the true desire to be perceived.

Longing for the ease other people possess and to see past my own blindness to myself.

My desperate desire to share myself. Yet I am unable to do so.

All of these are painful and I've done my best to avoid them. But I think it's time to face them. And, if possible, document and share them.

I’ve gotten to the point where I know my skills, I know my materials, and now I really want to get to where I’m just enjoying what I do and focusing on the work. This collection is about expanding horizons, delving into uncomfortable spaces, and making icky little paintings that express what I’ve been to and impossible places I’ve made in my own mind.

This first strange, surreal landscape painting is "I Wander, Searching for Nothing". It was originally meant to be something else, but when I laid down that hazy, milky blue on top of that gold, I fell in love.

It’s a little ode to being from Texas (although I’m from the swamps, not the desert), and an ode to being seen. I am attempting to catalogue ten landscapes of my mind, and this is the first.

The figure crosses the desert, nearly the same color as the cacti dotting that space.

Her reflection shines in the sand.

She heads for the mountains, but they’re are unreachable.

She can see the stars falling on the mountains, never quite reaching the desert. Landing on the distant mountains full of lush cities and throngs of lucky people.

Brown bleeds down from the mountains into her desert like a curse.

And yet the bright gold of the desert suggests fortune, favor, and fertility while the distant mountains are a hazy green-blue. Shapeless and simple.

She wanders in an endless land, a part of the land like the cacti but also experiencing it first-hand. It would be less painful to be a cactus, to have one place as your own. A simple purpose.

Instead, the figure is doomed to wander. Searching for nothing.