Artist Statement
I have spent several years drawing trees from observation; studying how their branches twist and turn, reach and retreat, linger… My new paintings are of trees painted from my imagination. A line becomes a branch, then a line again; it spurts, stops, twists, then breaks. The limbs are sometimes graceful; other times they are awkward, coarse, entangled gestures. Tension exists in reading the marks as both nature-based and pure abstraction.
The trees are painted in oil on translucent vellum stretched over mirror creating a subtle luminous quality and 3-dimensional effect. I try to capture the sublime quality of the Hudson River Luminists as well as the sense of limitless space in twelfth century Chinese Southern Sung landscapes. Within my paintings there are no cultural references; I aim to reflect the timelessness of nature in a fleeting moment.
Website
http://www.MaggieTobin.com
