My work explores the relationship between humans and our environment – man-made and natural. I am particularly interested in the interface between urban, rural, and wild in this era of rapid environmental change.

My passion for both color and form has resulted in two distinct bodies of work: freestanding sculptures; and paintings, sometimes augmented in the 3rd dimension.

SCULPTURE

Delicate wooden constructions reference the environments we build, transformed into allegories of human relationships. The apparently fragile medium of wood is bent and persuaded into precarious forms, changing the simplest form of shelter – a child’s caricature of a house – into a description of the balancing acts we perform to navigate precarious times.

PAINTING

These landscapes juxtapose natural ecosystems with the human footprint, often represented by architectural elements or text phrases taken from common signage. In the contrast between inorganic infrastructure and vibrant habitat, we see both destruction and the determined persistence of the other lives which form the environment that we too need for our survival.

My paintings are influenced by the technical virtuosity and transcendent luminosity of romantics such as the Hudson River School painters. But my landscapes necessarily reflect contemporary interventions in the natural world, as seen by a contemporary eye.

Tamara Stephas
2020