12 - 5 p.m. PST
Stan State Art Space Zoom Artist lecture for Matthew Paul Warner - Davies
Matthew Paul Warner - Davies Artist Statement
"I spent the majority of my early and teenage years in rural Northern California. The isolation and monotony of my experience overwhelmed my vision of its beauty. When I left at eighteen, I purposed to never return to this corner of the world. However, the impact of that landscape, lonely industrial buildings, open spaces of the Central Valley, and evergreen forests stayed deep in my psyche and continued to reflect my sense of place and home.
In 2018, having returned to this landscape, I was greeted with visions of the places that I remember so well burning on the nightly news. I was compelled to map my memories of these sites, and the spread of the fires with acrylic paint on canvas and paper. These painted maps of the fires’ spread serve as symbols of the effect of the fire on the landscape. These abstract images are paired with paintings and ceramic sculptures depicting architectural forms and landscapes culled from my memories. I am simplifying them through the language of paint, clay, and color to access an emotional landscape. The sculptures are works that bear the signs of going through fire. Getting to Nowhere is about navigating the places we know, mapping how they disappear and change over time, and acknowledging how our life experience informs our memories of their beauty."