ARTIST STATEMENT

STORM SERIES

Storm Series continues to investigate my creative interest in the structure of the natural world. Much like my previous body of work, Imaginary Landscapes, which consist of large, highly-textured and abstracted paintings on canvas, these new works delve into how artistic process and naturally occurring phenomena share visual and tactile properties, including patterning, layering, additive and subtractive elements. 

These new works begin primarily in a black, white and gray palette, starting to recreate sweeping terrestrial and atmospheric formations and abstractions; they follow with layers of pigment and ink washes, technical gouache and acrylic applications. They attempt to map both the sky below and the space beyond, whether cosmic or geographic, creating an expanse between and an extension above. The viewer looks upward with some, or repositions as a satellite looking down upon land and sea in others, or yet other times is caught between. Collectively, they follow, document and forecast their own dynamic weather system. From pigment clouds to frenzied electric line-work to the nightly shadows of star clouds, they create their own story of their storm.

Nadia Fay
2013



IMAGINARY LANDSCAPES / TEXTUROLOGIES

Much of my creative interest lies in the structure of the natural world: the inherent design scheme of seemingly chaotic phenomena, the tactile and visual manifestations of living and non-living systems, the coalescence of repeated patterns and incongruous forms. This work attempts to reconcile between a macrocosmic and microcosmic lens, and I use the dynamic between structure and disorder, representation and abstraction, and flatness and depth to aid the collaboration. These new paintings are multi-layered, consisting of pigment and ink washes, and acrylic medium impasto. The combination and separation of the layers fosters a dynamic of interrelated parts. I am fascinated with complexity. My process often mimes natural processes: the separation of paint pigments to the settling of sediments; the path paint-washes react to the varying elevations of sculpted gel medium, like a river patterning in and around stone and earth. I work almost exclusively on the ground, echoing the topographical nature of these works, which are often influenced by aerial and satellite imagery. From these notions become my abstract imaginary landscapes.

2009