By creating an alternative view to traditional landscape painting, my re-conceived lanadscapes of the American West and the coast of Calaifornia, simultaneously real and surreal, invite the viewer to experience our surroundings with a new perspective and to lose oneself in an environment of nature enhanced and unexpected. Through the interplay of light and space, unorthodox colors, patterns and movement, a symbolic narrative with a mystical presence arises. Primal emotions and instinctive, intuitive forces from within the human psyche are accessed through awareness of our natural world.
Derived from, but not documentions of specific places, these views are "re-imaginings" . The viewer is led to wonder where these landscapes exist - with a longing to visit, and at the same time search in their own subconscious to find a personal location.
Created by tapping into a huge visual resevoir of memories, I also utilize field notes, photos and thumbnail sketches. A thrid generation Californian, I spent a large part of my childhood on a 15,000 acre coastal cattle ranch- one of the original Spanish Land Grant ranchos - near Santa Barbara. My fondest memories, that inform my work today, are roaming alone on horseback for hours and hours, up and down the canyons, seeing the land go on forever from the ridgetops and on the beach, observing the natural world with the innocent imagination of childhood.
EDUCATION: California Institute of the Arts ( Chouinard Art School ) 1968-1971; summer programs at Universidad de Guadalajara ( Escuela de Arts Plasticas ) and Otis Art Institute, Los Angeles; University of California Santa Barbara ( College of Creative Studies) BFA 1972
AWARDS: John E. Profant Foundation for the Arts, Individual Visual Artist Grant; Gold Award, Art Of California Magazine ; Santa Barbara Museum of Art Fellowship "Meet the Artist"; Finalist- General Services Administration's Art in Architecture , San Francisco Federal Building
Widely exhibited in galleries and museums in California.
Complete CV here: www.phoebebrunner.com
