June 2023: Paula Blackwell

Exploiting the atmospheric translucencies of beeswax, Blackwell’s landscape paintings guide us through scenes that owe more to her own psychological makeup than to any actual earthly location. One would be hard-pressed to identify a specific species of tree or any landmark of mountain or lake in these paintings. Instead, Blackwell is rendering an internal view of a psychological space pregnant with mystery and longing. This is a universal territory, and we are all invited to explore it.

In her trajectory towards the realization of her artistic identity, Blackwell has indeed followed her own winding path, led by the call of the medium she found along the way. She has traveled far from her practice of decorating interior spaces, to her rendering of the exterior landscape, and finally calling upon these images of the land to render what is truly internal. Blackwell’s work expresses a longing for beauty, joy, and serenity, and evokes the mysterious path we all must follow to find them.