Soil Paintings
By Sarah Horne
Hotel on North Exhibit, October 3rd - November 29th
Reception on Friday, October 6th, 5-8pm
At dawn, after waves of fog melt into blue air, the land ahead rises into view. Gently parting the curtain, the land - fields and pastures, begin to glow with dawn’s gentle entrance. The light is soft as the deep crimson as the barn slowly rises into view.
This exhibit is about the mixture of organic matter, minerals, gases, and liquids - the alchemy that makes soil. I made these Soil paintings because soil is elemental to the environment that keeps us alive: soil and its nutrients are fundamental to growth. It is the earth beneath our feet. I feel that our souls, our beginnings and our endings lie low in the soil.
This is the earth that I sink my hands into when I make a garden. This is the same mud I tromp through in high boots in rain and snow. Dark, light, dense and soft, the soil moves and changes, getting caught in an eddy, sliding into a river, trod on by horses, dogs and humans. The love of the earth comes to me in the quiet, as I walk the land, kick at the ground, taking time to really look.
These paintings are a representation of what I see when I look directly down at soil - soil in rain, soil in drought, soil on the best of days and on the worst. The paintings are multi-layered, complex and earthy.
I am lucky enough to know two extraordinarily beautiful working farms that serve as the inspiration for these Soil paintings: Spring Hills Farm in Dalton, PA and Woven Roots Farm in Tyringham, MA. Both are organic farms, placing high importance on the health and beauty of soil.
While making these paintings my artistic references were inspired by other abstract landscape painters. Helen Frankenthaler’s vast atmospheric, color field paintings of water, sea and mountains, Joan Mitchell’s large-scale canvases alive with raw, gestural mark making, and Tim Hawkesworth’s energized oil paintings which search for primal meaning in our overdeveloped age.
My paintings are made with acrylic, acrylic ink, matte and gloss mediums on canvas. The framed paintings are made with acrylic, acrylic ink, matte medium and glue on paper