Throughout my life as an artist/painter, I have found my inspiration in the world of nature. The places I prefer as a source for motifs are the places that I can experience continually, such as the view from my house and studio windows or a park or special garden close by that I visit all the time in every season and light. I live in a village surrounded by fields and woods with gentle hills and four seasons in a year.
I most often paint in cycles where I concentrate on one of “my” places for a while in a series of works and then move to another motif. There is usually overlap and a cycling back toward previous motifs. Discoveries in each cycle inspire future series. I swing between abstraction and naturalism and I often paint and draw on location. My on location paintings are a way of building up a memory of landscape but as finished paintings can become too burdened by information. I prefer to have time to reflect and distill so I often work over the outdoor version in the studio. It can become a finer reflection or a reflection of a different experience, such as the painting below, “Winter Garden”.
What I respond to in the space surrounding me is the light and color first and then the structure of the trees. I love trees and experience them as living architecture. I can imagine them breathing when I walk through the woods. They also remind me of the great church architecture of Gothic Europe.
Below, the painting The Listener is a studio invention that alludes to time passing, night/day and again…I find winter more evocative.
To conclude my post, I am back at my studio with a photo of a winter sunset seen through a window.
Lanna Pejovic is one of eight gallery artists represented by Main Street Arts. She is featured in the exhibition CULTIVATE which runs April 7 through May 18, 2018.
