New York-based artist Karla Wozniak currently has a show “Significant Landscapes” at the Gregory Lind Gallery. Wozniak makes paintings of the American landscape that involve abstraction, spatial illusion and typography. Taking visual data from places seen on her road trips throughout the United States, Wozniak’s paintings are documentary in one sense, but also fiction in that she imbues them with personal and hallicinatory inventions.
The title of the exhibition “Significant Landscapes” alludes to a set of poems by Wallace Stevens called Six Significant Landscapes where each of the six landscapes is constructed from Stevens’ imagination. Likewise, Wozniak relies considerably on imagination for her re-interpretations of scenes from everyday American landscapes. Her works are composites: each painting represents several different cross-sections of a specifc geographic area. Shadows and light cut across the paintings, welding together fractured spaces. Commercial signage, architecture, and foliage intermingle with abstraction yet Wozniak’s work never loses that quintessential feel of being on a road trip through America.
“Significant Landscapes” is on display through August 12, 2011.
Pizza Ranch, Jackson, MN, 2011 Oil on panel, 24 x 26 in.
Jib Jab, Niles, OH, 2011 Watercolor, acrylic, colored pencil, graphite on paper, 30 x 41 in.
Pioneer Villa, I-5, OR, 2011 Oil on panel, 35 x 43 in.
*Photos from the Gregory Lind Gallery.
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