Journey to the Setting Sun
From wagon trains to the majestic mountains and vast Pacific Ocean, my journey to understanding of the Pacific Northwest has been largely focused on the past. Understanding this region in the context of American history is fraught with correcting the historical record and since arriving here, I voraciously analyze the role of the landscape in hopes to have a greater understanding of the Pacific Northwest and America.
Embarking on this series, I was surprised to find myself unconsciously painting in a style referencing both J.M.W.Turner and James Abbott McNeill Whistler. Given these are not artists I would say have ever been an influence in my work, I knew I was being drawn to these artists for
another reason. Turner, a Romanticist painter, heralded by the leading philosopher/art critic of the day, John Ruskin, and Whistler, who famously sued Ruskin, were two artists straddling an era of rapidly changing aesthetic philosophies, and enormous political change (Industrial
Revolution and collapse of several empires). Yet they reflect similar painterly approaches, celebrating the emotions, even with their different ideals about painting and the role of historical events. I feel they were truly reflective of their time; for there in the backdrop of their time; the
departure from Age of Enlightenment, with its strict adherence to science and evolved into Romanticism; the celebration of the individual and inner emotions, but concurrently, with the celebration of this individualism was the growth of Nationalism.
Historically, Romanticism has always been very tied with the imagery and celebration of the Westward Expansion in America. As the United States was expanding, the enormous paintings of the Romanticist era (Bierstadt, Church) we continue to associate with American landscape and identity today. As the influence of the early Romantic ideals faded into the background, historical records are corrected, art and philosophy departed into theory of form, modernism. And here I am, looking backward, with the sense a new world is emerging. We exist in a time fascinating for its expansiveness; a world beyond borders, beyond structured identities. The advent of social media, multi-national corporations, AI, and also a rise in Nationalism, fascism, enormous disparity in wealth-there are battles in freedoms and identity from all sides.
I have always been a hunter and gatherer of imagery defining America through landscape and its markers, iconography, conscious and unconscious .Finding myself making work for this show, I am ruminating - what does history teach us? Does history repeat itself? It feels like
uncharted waters, yet I am fascinated by the elements that mirror the past, even as I am frightened with this inchoate feeling, looking out upon a horizon that I truly cannot see beyond.
Michelle Muldrow
June 2024
From wagon trains to the majestic mountains and vast Pacific Ocean, my journey to understanding of the Pacific Northwest has been largely focused on the past. Understanding this region in the context of American history is fraught with correcting the historical record and since arriving here, I voraciously analyze the role of the landscape in hopes to have a greater understanding of the Pacific Northwest and America.
Embarking on this series, I was surprised to find myself unconsciously painting in a style referencing both J.M.W.Turner and James Abbott McNeill Whistler. Given these are not artists I would say have ever been an influence in my work, I knew I was being drawn to these artists for
another reason. Turner, a Romanticist painter, heralded by the leading philosopher/art critic of the day, John Ruskin, and Whistler, who famously sued Ruskin, were two artists straddling an era of rapidly changing aesthetic philosophies, and enormous political change (Industrial
Revolution and collapse of several empires). Yet they reflect similar painterly approaches, celebrating the emotions, even with their different ideals about painting and the role of historical events. I feel they were truly reflective of their time; for there in the backdrop of their time; the
departure from Age of Enlightenment, with its strict adherence to science and evolved into Romanticism; the celebration of the individual and inner emotions, but concurrently, with the celebration of this individualism was the growth of Nationalism.
Historically, Romanticism has always been very tied with the imagery and celebration of the Westward Expansion in America. As the United States was expanding, the enormous paintings of the Romanticist era (Bierstadt, Church) we continue to associate with American landscape and identity today. As the influence of the early Romantic ideals faded into the background, historical records are corrected, art and philosophy departed into theory of form, modernism. And here I am, looking backward, with the sense a new world is emerging. We exist in a time fascinating for its expansiveness; a world beyond borders, beyond structured identities. The advent of social media, multi-national corporations, AI, and also a rise in Nationalism, fascism, enormous disparity in wealth-there are battles in freedoms and identity from all sides.
I have always been a hunter and gatherer of imagery defining America through landscape and its markers, iconography, conscious and unconscious .Finding myself making work for this show, I am ruminating - what does history teach us? Does history repeat itself? It feels like
uncharted waters, yet I am fascinated by the elements that mirror the past, even as I am frightened with this inchoate feeling, looking out upon a horizon that I truly cannot see beyond.
Michelle Muldrow
June 2024
