(e)mersion by Claire Lichtenstein
Immersion | Emotion | Emerging
My name is Claire. I’m an abstract painter living in Wilderness. Wilderness holds memories that are both soothing and raw—a refuge for both joy and pain. It’s a place that has seen me at my most vulnerable, yet it is here that I find strength. As a child, this place was my sanctuary. Now, being back here, it feels as if my past has come full circle, and I am meeting my younger self. Painting has become my second sanctuary. There is freedom in laying down color, letting go of control, and allowing accidents to shape the work. Each brushstroke is a conversation with the past. These colors are more than choices; they are expressions of what I feel beneath the surface. The Lake—like the mother I never had—holds and soothes me. Her waters are a crucible for my rage, allowing me the vulnerability to be courageous. In many ways, Wilderness and painting are mirrors for each other— places where I am free to explore, express, and create.
(e)mersion
by Belinda Ross
"This body of work explores the tension between memory and presence. Through layered abstraction each canvas is a fragment of a shifting landscape, emotional and remembered. Though individual works holds their own rhythm, they each explore variations of landscape, pathways and memories eroding with time. Together they trace a movement though space, from the vertical rise of organic form to the wide expansive terrain, pathways, and memories of a place once familiar. At the heart of the work is the desire to capture the feeling of freedom that comes from being outside, untethered, open to the quiet pull of open spaces. The process is as much about exploration as creation, working through the landscape to find what feels true. These works are not depictions, but translations of atmosphere, of gesture, contemplation, and the timeless pulse of the invisible world."
