Artist's Statement

​​​Barb Wauchope

​My love for wild places has taken me to deserts and rainforests, mountains and seacoasts around the world and my photographs or sketches of them are often my sources and inspiration.  They help me develop an initial design, establish values, and assess a scene's potential as a stimulus to my imagination.  In the studio I transform the images using oil paint or other media in a process of continuous interplay between the real and imagined.  I alter or amplify colors; and abstract, exaggerate, or make forms more realistic. I add or invent new forms out of existing ones.  The process helps me, and I hope will entice you, to linger and look harder at the natural landscapes around us, to see behind their complex and often confusing shapes and surfaces, and beyond the conventional landscape subjects, colors, and forms. Some of these works may surprise you with the unexpected and dynamic life that barely hides in plain sight.