Bart Elsbach

On Viewing the Landscape

When I look at the world I try to understand how it is put together; how the little pieces I am seeing are connected to each other; how they are related to all the other, incalculable little pieces, creating an ever-larger reality, rippling out from the center to infinity.
When I look at a landscape there are shapes, and shapes within shapes. Some shapes connect to others gently and gracefully; some seem to engage in a struggle with their surroundings. Colors - and colors laid over colors - mix with the atmosphere between them and me, insinuating texture. I look at where the colors lie on the spectrum from darkness to light and how they connect to the colors that surround them. I look at the possibilities for compositions that are created by the shapes and colors and their relationships to each other. I try to see the scene in front of me, and pieces of the scene simultaneously, as complete images. I also try to find key aspect(s) of a referent, the most intriguing, and imagine how I might cultivate that intrigue by creating an image using that referent as a starting point.
Before picking up my brush, I imagine how I might use pigments to evoke the patterns and marks in fields and treelines that seem to be a type of iconography, or the way light dances on a treeline, its movement so infinitely complex and varied and yet providing the illusion of constancy and simplicity.

I am surrounded by symbolism. Meanings layer themselves, like colors, becoming deeper and richer as they overlap. Trees struggle toward their magic nutrient - the light - even as we struggle toward ours - security, a sense of meaning, acceptance.

Dark forms lie between the artist and the pure, saturated colors; between the viewer and fields of light. We all struggle against the dark forms of everyday annoyances and looming frustrations that separate us from our goals and ideals, our greener pastures. From a larger vantage, it becomes clear that in the struggle and tension lies a richer image than "arriving" could ever produce.

Bright open areas are split by spreading tree forms that reach toward each other and curve away like thoughts opening to ideas, developing into personalities and ideologies. Only when we realize we are a part of Nature can Nature teach us to embrace the struggle and, ultimately, elevate us beyond its reach.

Bart Elsbach is represented by:
Ute Stebich Gallery, 69 Church Street, Lenox, MA 01240 tel. 413-637-3566
O.K. Harris Gallery, 383 West Broadway, New York, NY 10012 tel. 212-431-3600
David Klein Gallery, 163 Townsend, Birmingham, MI 46009 tel. 248-433-3700
M.A. Doran Gallery, 3509 South Peoria Avenue, Tulsa, OK 74105 tel.918-748-8700




Copyright 2002 Bart Elsbach - All Rights Reserved