ARTIST STATEMENT (RÉSUMÉ below)

 

My work is concerned with our conflicted relationship with nature, at the core of which is the notion that we are separate from it.  My work emphasizes connection.  The colors and compositions in my work come from the landforms and life forms I encounter in the  backcountry.  I work from a strong sense of place.  My paintings do not depict actual places; rather, they are composite maps of my experiences in high alpine wild places.

 

When one moves paint around on canvas, the forms that are the conceptual matrices and patterns underlying conscious experience emerge.  The painter steps aside and lets that process happen.  My paintings touch down into the unexplored territory of psyche/wilderness and bring something back.  I am a self-taught painter who has had the privilege of studying for a few brief interludes with a great painter.

 

Deer often appear in my work. I frequently encounter mule deer in the backcountry where I run.  In the Rocky Mountain Southwest, where I live, deer occupy the most rugged and remote territory.  As shadowy inhabitants of “edge” territory between forest and field, between our constructed world and the wilderness, they mediate between humans and nature.  Encounters with them are often fleeting.  They are adept at stillness and concealment.  Occasionally, when I replicate their stillness, the encounter can stretch into a space outside of time.  Deer are central to ecosystems around the world.  All of this makes them rich subject for visual metaphor.  In my paintings, the metaphor has extended into other sorts of edge territory: the space between humans and nature, and between consciousness and the unconscious. 

 

The Big Dream series was engendered by a single dream that has produced four paintings to date.  I am working on other Big Dream paintings, some of which incorporate found deer bones, hair, and sand. Granite Point Ambush was created after I came upon a “kill spot” in the snow, in which predators downed and completely consumed a doe in a few hours time. Lenny is a buck who visited my yard during hunting season and stayed awhile.

 

Content dictates media and technique in my work; I am not limited by a single approach.  My oil and mixed media paintings often involve laying down, layering, and scratching off paint as well as burying and exposing bones, deer hair, and collaged materials. All of the bones and hair in my work are found in the wilderness.

 

Watercolors offer a different, more immediate and fluid experience, but the process of stepping aside and letting a painting breathe and reveal its internal structures and symbols is the same, regardless of media.             

 

Thank you for visiting.

 

RÉSUMÉ

 

Forthcoming: Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art, Indianapolis, IN.  Winter.  Juried exhibition, December 2009

Warehouse 21, Santa Fe, NM.  Artists For Animal Awareness. Juried exhibition. Judith Vejvoda, Curator. November 2008

Wilder Nightingale Fine Art, Taos, NM.  O2. Paintings by Cate Moses / Paintings & Installation by Dienke Nauta.  Invitational exhibition, October 2008

Scottish Rite Temple, Santa Fe, New Mexico. Bravo. Invitational exhibition, October 2003 

SOFe ArtSpace, Santa Fe, New Mexico.  Peace Show.  Juried exhibition, curated by Erika Wanenmacher.  May-June 2003 

Rufina Studios, Santa Fe, New Mexico. Off Canyon. Invitational exhibition, September 2002

Munson Gallery, Santa Fe, New Mexico.  A Show of Colors.  Invitational exhibition, November, 2001

 

reviews

The Santa Fean Magazine. “Art Reviews: O2.: Dienke Nauta and Cate Mosesat At Wilder Nightingale Fine Art,” October-Nov. 2008

P/Reviews: “A Fall Harvest of Riches, O2.: Cate Moses and Dienke Nauta At Wilder Nightingale Fine Art,” Steve Fox, Taos Daily Horsefly, 15 Sept. 2008

 

education

Studied painting with Sam Scott

Pennsylvania State University. Ph.D. in English, Specialization in Contemporary American and African American Literature, M.A. in English

University of New Mexico, Albuquerque. B.A. in English Literature and Creative Writing, magna cum laude

 

recent community service

St. Elizabeth Emergency Shelter, Santa Fe, NM.  Volunteer cook and server.  2008-present

Volunteer Art Teacher, Acequia Madre Elementary School, 2007-present; Atalaya Elementary School, Santa Fe, NM, 2006-2007