Artist Statement: “Traveling Landscapes” by Kathleen Vance
With the series entitled “Traveling Landscapes”, vignettes of nature are encapsulated within steamer trunks and train cases aged through travel. Displaced elements indicative of natural landscapes are presented in partially opened cases, as to not fully expose the delicateness of what is contained within. Streams and rivers activate the scenes as they course through the landscapes contained within the cases. The illusion of life and growth, illuminated within, reflects the desire to capture a part of nature untouched by humans. Used as a mediation device between the lush pastoral scenes contained within and the harsh actuality of their physical surroundings, the trunks and cases elicit visions of travel, preciousness and possession.
Materials that are commonly defined as natural and artificial are combined in the creation of these works, isolating aspects that are indicative of the ‘natural’ (while sometimes are considered unnatural). The landscapes created are transformative in their illusion of a nature scene; they are contained in traveling cases to magnify the displacement of a seemingly natural landscape in an unusual framework. These pieces extenuate the desire for ‘untouched’ natural environments, and the claim and proprietorship that are placed on plots of land, which carries over to water rights.
-Kathleen Vance
