McElwain, Louisa
"I have lived and painted in New Mexico since 1985, working outdoors under a wide variety of conditions, open to the impulse of changing light, wind, heat, cold, insects, and forces of Nature which bring life into my paintings. For me, painting is a dance to the tempo of the evolving day.
Usually, I paint off the back of a pick-up truck, which gives me access to many wonderful places, and provides a way to stabilize and transport large canvases. Here in the West it seems that the canvas is never big enough. To include my entire field of vision at arms length, 60 x 90 inches is about right. I paint with knives and masonry trowels, which allows me to work fast. Each painting is completed in less than four hours, regardless of size, as permitted by weather and light.
Painting large canvases outdoors invites another interaction with nature, as inevitably insects, particles of plants and soil end up on the painting. I see these as valuable contributions to the work. Sometimes I put little stones, bones or pieces of glass and plants into the paint, in the same spirit as the Navajo weaver who incorporates things into her blanket to bless those who will receive it and as a way of acknowledging the temporality of things.
My process is an inquiry into sensuous potential of paint. To explore the mystery of sensation, to touch that which is known but cannot be measured, understood yet indescribable; the act of painting is an expression of my connectedness with God and Nature. I am Nature."
Louisa McElwain
Usually, I paint off the back of a pick-up truck, which gives me access to many wonderful places, and provides a way to stabilize and transport large canvases. Here in the West it seems that the canvas is never big enough. To include my entire field of vision at arms length, 60 x 90 inches is about right. I paint with knives and masonry trowels, which allows me to work fast. Each painting is completed in less than four hours, regardless of size, as permitted by weather and light.
Painting large canvases outdoors invites another interaction with nature, as inevitably insects, particles of plants and soil end up on the painting. I see these as valuable contributions to the work. Sometimes I put little stones, bones or pieces of glass and plants into the paint, in the same spirit as the Navajo weaver who incorporates things into her blanket to bless those who will receive it and as a way of acknowledging the temporality of things.
My process is an inquiry into sensuous potential of paint. To explore the mystery of sensation, to touch that which is known but cannot be measured, understood yet indescribable; the act of painting is an expression of my connectedness with God and Nature. I am Nature."
Louisa McElwain