Adele Shaw
The work in this series documents Adele’s experience of a place located on the Tropic of Cancer. In January and February, a small town in Baja California Sur offered her time to work and ruminate on the color and light in the landscape. The kinetic environment, fueled by the dynamics of wind, water and light, played on her inner sensibilities and basic instincts. She painted what she experienced.
When painting water and the landscape, she observes patterns. One side of a wave can produce a mirror reflecting what’s above, while another side of the same wave produces a mirror to what’s below. Some patterns are caused by the wind, while others are features of the land. She’s learned to interpret these fleeting and unpredictable patterns as rhythmic, sensual caresses. These paintings approach traditional landscape painting with an infusion of abstract expressionism. They create a sensory connection, not only to the sights of a place, but the smells and sounds as well. She offers her experience to you, the viewer, in these paintings. May you find resonance and familiarity. Her work looks to connect the observer to water; to transport them to a place of spirituality and sublimity, much like the works of Anselm Keifer and Cy Twombly, two artists she admires. By creating stirring, emotional paintings of water she hopes to emphasize our collective awareness of the importance of water, one painting at a time.