Previous   View all Lilian Garcia-Roig   Next  
View all Modern and Contemporary    or  View Main Categories  

Garcia-Roig, Lilian Lavender Vine Maple Branches Oil on canvas 30 x 24 inches

Home

Lilian Garcia-Roig

I am a perceptually based, plein-air (or on-site) landscape painter who is trying to capture the character of seemingly ordinary, dense landscape in a way that reflects a passionate engagement with the scene and with the painting process.

I work on-site (en Plein-air) because it is the only way for a painter to capture the multi-dimensional experience of a landscape, focusing in and out at various depths, noticing and trying to balance various relations among spatial elements such as color, size, shape and visual weight. The perceptual melting or push-pull that occurs when the viewers are continuously forced to focus in and out of my paintings parallels the experience of being in dense, tangled woods.

For me, the passage of time is necessary for experiencing changing light, and hence color and forms. As the light changes in the scene, different features become highlighted, come to my attention, and are recorded on the canvas, not as a detail, but rather as an overall accent. In this way I see more than is apparent at any one moment. This is not available, for example, in a photograph, which only captures a single monocular instant. Our memory of places is much more like a summary of highlighted moments experienced at different times but compressed into one intense impression.

By creating the illusion of recognizable trees, I draw the viewers comfortably into what they perceive will be a conventional space. Up close, however, the images break down; the lush, gestural paint marks and occasional raw patches of canvas help to reinforce for the viewer the two-dimensional character of abstract painting as an activity as much as an end-product.

--Lilian Garcia-Roig