January 2002
Adria Arch
adria@nearts.com
www.nearts.com/AdriaArchArtist Statement:
Our lives are subject to random events. The choices we make to control, change, or give ourselves over to these events determine our life’s course. My recent work concerns these concepts which I explore in my painting technique as well as in the combinations of painted panels that comprise the finished pieces.
These paintings employ direct painting as well as the technique of "sgraffito", a process in which scratching reveals fragments of the layers of paint beneath the surface. As I begin to scratch and scrape, what I reveal suggests forms, eventually resulting in personal, non-objective imagery suggestive of an internal landscape.
The final pieces are comprised of columns of imagery that are conjoined on a plywood backing. The panels alternate between flat, linear designs and those more suggestive of space and volume. The resulting paintings linger on the edge of harmony and disjointedness, suggesting tension and the low-level anxiety that characterizes daily life for so many of us now.
