Saundra McPherson

My work is about place, drawing on relationships with urban and rural wild places. I reference physical transformation in natural phenomena, and the human-nature interface. Working with the physicality and immediacy of materials, my studio practice parallels forces inherent in nature: applying and manipulating semi-transparent layers. Color-saturated surfaces are built over time. The Edge series suggests the boundary where land or water meets sky, an in-between zone of light and form. They imagine the geological and biological processes underlying and shaping the landscape over millennia and taking place beneath our feet - from the evolution of soil and the organisms that maintain it, to deposition, erosion, faulting and uplift creating land forms. The work is transforming in response to the high desert: the plants, soil and stone of the Jemez and Sangre de Cristo mountains, the shifting Rio Grande Rift, ever changing skies, fierce light and seasonal palette, and the undulating surface of adobe, drystone walls and acequia - our own imprint on the land. As a color field painter, juxtaposing color is my language; the Boxed:Shift series expands and refines this color interaction, the geometric forms defining both object & negative space interchangeably. I have participated in group and solo exhibitions nationally, and my work is held in private and corporate collections, including Oracle Corporation, the University of Wisconsin Chazen Museum, and Charles Schwab Corporation.

Raised in semi-rural northern California, I return to nature and its processes in my studio practice. Influenced by study and studio practice in fine art, non-profit art management, and Earth sciences at University of California Berkeley, New York University, San Francisco Art Institute, and Drexel University, I began a full-time studio practice in 2001. Exhibiting in western states and galleries, I am a full-time New Mexico resident and artist, a student of high desert geology, biology and weather. My work is held in private and corporate collections, including Charles Schwab Corp., Oracle Corp., and the Chazen Museum at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

2-D, Painting (all materials)