RUSS HAVARD
RUSS HAVARD
Artist Statement
I'm drawn towards nature imagery that depicts isolated elements in their continual struggle to flourish under desolate circumstances. The seemingly bleak, the empty landscape, speaks to me. It is in this silence that I see the never-ending waves of struggle, wearing down, and rebirth emerging. Landscape painting tends to draw on both tradition and symbolism.
I use landscape to symbolize growth through volatility and to convey beauty within desolation. Using materials such as watercolor, paper, and wood, the end result is not exactly traditional.
With my framed works, I isolate the subject matter with a narrow window, making the
frame a sculptural element. This extreme focal point creates a kind of quiet and
peaceful quality.
The constructed landscapes came from working in my Dad’s upholstery shop. From an
early age I learned how to use hand tools and work with different materials, uncovering
and covering things. Using wood, paint, paper, and razor, I create images and patterns
until they are de facto collages. I tend to think of the work as hybrids between many
interests such as: traditional/modern, painting/sculpture, realism/abstraction, fragile/
prominent, and rural/cosmopolitan. The process is an endless series of painting, cutting,
and re-configuring, where scenes become isolated moments on the horizon.
The process of endless building and reconfiguring transcends the mere physical and encompasses the spiritual and symbolic. The scars and flowers of experience against a backdrop of an endless sea of days transform into a tiny glimpse of what Heaven might be. In what some see as mere desolation, I find a spark of the sublime: a release into a quiet revelry, and a peace that covers it all.
By making paintings and constructions, I take part in a restoration process. It is an act of reclamation and pressing onward.
I use landscape to symbolize growth through volatility and to convey beauty within desolation. Using materials such as watercolor, paper, and wood, the end result is not exactly traditional.
With my framed works, I isolate the subject matter with a narrow window, making the
frame a sculptural element. This extreme focal point creates a kind of quiet and
peaceful quality.
The constructed landscapes came from working in my Dad’s upholstery shop. From an
early age I learned how to use hand tools and work with different materials, uncovering
and covering things. Using wood, paint, paper, and razor, I create images and patterns
until they are de facto collages. I tend to think of the work as hybrids between many
interests such as: traditional/modern, painting/sculpture, realism/abstraction, fragile/
prominent, and rural/cosmopolitan. The process is an endless series of painting, cutting,
and re-configuring, where scenes become isolated moments on the horizon.
The process of endless building and reconfiguring transcends the mere physical and encompasses the spiritual and symbolic. The scars and flowers of experience against a backdrop of an endless sea of days transform into a tiny glimpse of what Heaven might be. In what some see as mere desolation, I find a spark of the sublime: a release into a quiet revelry, and a peace that covers it all.
By making paintings and constructions, I take part in a restoration process. It is an act of reclamation and pressing onward.
