Late Afternoons - 2002

ARTIST STATEMENT:

PEOPLE IN NATURE


I have combined sketches of people from outings on St. Croix and life drawing sessions here at Walsh Metal Works Gallery, together with landscapes small and large. My combinations have to do with spirit; the idea that there is more around than we can see. This is seen in my fish paintings where I combine the aquatic with terrestrial landscapes or vice versa. Maybe when I bring seaweed into my garden for mulching and fertilizing, I bring more than just its physical properties. Sea creatures are as interesting to me as plants and rocks, and I combine them as necessary, creating situations and stories.


I combine people with nature and garden scenes because I feel strongly that we are nature’s caretakers. I feel that we have a huge impact on our physical world, and that it is our duty to realize that we as individuals can improve things or choose not to. We can grow food or choose not to. Fruit or food plants are seen often in my work, representing mother nature’s gifts to us.

HISTORICAL DOCUMENTS

Every rock has a story, as does every shell, bone and grain of sand. I have created compositions with different characters, to make new stories. Images of spiritual monoliths and simple buildings have informed these works: Stonehenge, Easter Island, tombstones, archaeological artifacts, cave paintings, the crude masonry of old farmhouses. I present artifacts, re-preserved for our contemplation of their history, and perhaps for us to reflect on our own history as part of the earth. Most items in this series of sculptural work were found at Castle Nugent beach, Longford beach and in between. On some stretches of these beaches there are eroding cliffs rising twenty to thirty feet, where you can see the ground’s stratification. This has always intrigued me. I’m curious about each stratum’s age and its story of creation. The idea of layers of time plays into these pieces. I’ve magnified the focus on individual rocks, for they too have worlds within them.

Luca Gasperi, 2002