Artist's Statement
I have always been a true Romantic, longing to experience and express things that might appear outrageous to others all for the sake of what I was feeling. There is a near-spiritual thirst in such hearts to be in touch with emotions that run both deep and wide. I have long admired the passion of 19th-century Romanticism, from the thrill of the unknown and exotic to the heights and depths of emotion, sometimes contained within even a single brief work. The Transcendentalist ideals of such brilliant minds as Goethe, Ralph Waldo Emerson, or William Wordsworth are an unending source of inspiration to me. Though their philosophies take the idea of “communing with nature” much farther than my own, I do sense the spiritual and cerebral more completely than the physical and consider myself a “Christian humanist.”
Ever since I was a child I have been in awe of nature, from the sheer power of winds and water to the beautiful complexity of animals and plants. It is vast and unpredictable, extreme and breathtaking. When I was 14, my family took a road trip around the country, from the East Coast to the West and back again. One evening, from miles away at a secluded diner, we watched a tornado form over the Badlands of South Dakota. I will never forget how radically small and insignificant I felt. This was something wild, free, and uncontrollable; there was nothing any human could have done to stop that majestic and terrifying force. I believe that nature is delicately balanced, yes – but I also believe that it will endure. Of course, that does not give mankind a pass to do whatever we wish. Instead, it should cultivate humility as we realize that we, too, are part of that energy, and inspire us to keep the balance as safe and healthy as we can. Good stewardship of what we have will lead future generations, allowing them to experience that same near-perfect harmony and transforming power. Observing the miraculous resilience of nature gives me hope.
In this piece I wished to convey that thrilling sense of that tornado’s dreadful, overwhelming power in the form of storm clouds. I am very impressed and inspired by contemporary artists such as Dylan Cole, John Howe, Ted Nasmith, and Justin Gerard, whose scope is matched by their attention to detail. Though I would have preferred to work in oils, I work much more quickly in digital. I also wanted to experiment with how detailed I could make the piece merely by zooming in to create the smallest shapes with tiny, up-close brushstrokes for an overall effect that was somewhat more photorealistic than the more painterly, Impressionistic pieces I have previously created in Photoshop.
For over a decade, one of my favorite paintings has been Wanderer Above a Sea of Fog by Caspar David Friedrich, as it captures the intense duality of feelings that nature inspires: isolation and grandeur. The single figure, longing for something he may never achieve, something that remains just out of his reach, can only be an artist. He longs for perfection – but knows in his heart that he will never achieve it – and still he strives. In the fifth poem in “East Coker” from The Four Quartets, T. S. Eliot wrote,
“ . . . and every attempt
Is a wholly new start, and a different kind of failure . . . so each venture
Is a new beginning, a raid on the inarticulate . . .
There is only the fight to recover what has been lost
And found and lost again and again: and now, under conditions
That seem unpropitious.
But perhaps neither gain nor loss.
For us, there is only the trying. The rest is not our business.”
Eliot, T. S. (1940). East Coker: V. London: Four Quartets.
Friedrich, C. D. (1818). Wanderer above a sea of fog [painting]. Retrieved from http://www.artble.com/artists/caspar_david_friedrich/paintings/wanderer_above_the_sea_of_fog.
Lewis, J. J. (2002). Terminology: Defining transcendentalism. Transcendentalists. Retrieved from: http://www.transcendentalists.com/terminology.html.