Over a period of eight years I produced a series of paintings representing a single field on a farm near Port Hope, Ontario, exploring its visual aspect in all four seasons and in various conditions of light and times of day. Each of these pictures, painted in oil on board, forms a triptych of three panels related thematically. The same subject is seen at different times of day or from three different vantage points or it can be the opposite: three vistas, all seen from a single point. By using three different moments of looking in each painting, the element of time is introduced into what is often a static genre.

Each individual painting brings to the viewer the sense of stepping into nature, not merely to look at it but to experience both its permanence and its evanescence. I hope that the encounter with the entire body of work, in which a single subject is displayed in its profuse variety, will evoke in the onlooker an understanding not only of the way that nature looks, but of its inner meaning. To me this experience has a spiritual dimension, and I regard the content of the paintings as a statement about creation.

Martha Eleen

150 paintings, all paintings oil on wood; triptychs 12" x 36"
exceptions: 1993-1994 - varied sizes; Spring 1998 - single panels 12" x 12"; 18" x 18"
all images © 1993-2001 Martha Eleen

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