Interlaced Narrative
From the lakeside studio I am drawn into nature and inspired. Such beauty, light, and wonder leave me humbled. And yet, as I take the inspiration of the landscape and begin to paint, it is not simple beauty that emerges. My act of painting pushes me beyond the lovely, the easy. Just as nature destroys itself to be reborn, my work undergoes a similar natural process of evolution, death, and rebirth.
I begin painting a background that has been influenced by the marvel of nature such as the shining sunset reflecting in the water or billowing clouds moving across the sky. Once the background painting is completed I begin to disrupt that cherished image of a memory by meticulously painting lines into a woven textile covering. At times the intersecting lines are painted tightly forcing viewers to stay on the outside and barely able to see the landscape underneath. The covering suffocates the land and it can not breathe. Then in another painting the web splits open to larger passageways, the background comes to the foreground, (a play between positive and negative) and one can see larger vistas of what lies beneath. While immersing myself in painting I think about whether barriers act to protect or keep us isolated, or whether coverings keep us warm, safe, hidden or become suffocating? The work has evolved into a complex dialogue surrounding identity in relation to physical and psychological barriers.
Detritus Structures
Detritus Structures focuses on the beauty which lies in the symbiotic process of birth and death. During Wagner-Ott’s walks in the forest, she zooms in and takes photos of fragments of silver-green lichens and blue moss on tree barks, or the decaying plants along the forest. Back in the studio she uses the photographs of those vignettes as inspiration. Her painting process is complex and involves many steps from constructing woven cotton thread-like grids that she creates on a sewing machine and then burying them in hot wax and pulling them out when the wax cools. Wagner-Ott’s goal is to combine paint, threads and wax to simulate the process of the disintegration of life forms.
The circles or ovals are like magnifying glasses centred on fragments of life and death.
Light From Within
In this series Anna Wagner-Ott has moved from the rectangular format to painting paper fragments and sewing thread weavings on her sewing machine or a loom. Once the parts are completed she may sew the weavings onto the surface or disrupt the background layer by meticulously painting intersected thread lines. The intersecting lines are painted or woven tightly forcing viewers to stay on the outside and barely able to see the colors underneath. In another the web modulates and is cut open to let the background breathe. This series continues with the complex dialogue surrounding identity in relation to physical and psychological barriers.
From the lakeside studio I am drawn into nature and inspired. Such beauty, light, and wonder leave me humbled. And yet, as I take the inspiration of the landscape and begin to paint, it is not simple beauty that emerges. My act of painting pushes me beyond the lovely, the easy. Just as nature destroys itself to be reborn, my work undergoes a similar natural process of evolution, death, and rebirth.
I begin painting a background that has been influenced by the marvel of nature such as the shining sunset reflecting in the water or billowing clouds moving across the sky. Once the background painting is completed I begin to disrupt that cherished image of a memory by meticulously painting lines into a woven textile covering. At times the intersecting lines are painted tightly forcing viewers to stay on the outside and barely able to see the landscape underneath. The covering suffocates the land and it can not breathe. Then in another painting the web splits open to larger passageways, the background comes to the foreground, (a play between positive and negative) and one can see larger vistas of what lies beneath. While immersing myself in painting I think about whether barriers act to protect or keep us isolated, or whether coverings keep us warm, safe, hidden or become suffocating? The work has evolved into a complex dialogue surrounding identity in relation to physical and psychological barriers.
Detritus Structures
Detritus Structures focuses on the beauty which lies in the symbiotic process of birth and death. During Wagner-Ott’s walks in the forest, she zooms in and takes photos of fragments of silver-green lichens and blue moss on tree barks, or the decaying plants along the forest. Back in the studio she uses the photographs of those vignettes as inspiration. Her painting process is complex and involves many steps from constructing woven cotton thread-like grids that she creates on a sewing machine and then burying them in hot wax and pulling them out when the wax cools. Wagner-Ott’s goal is to combine paint, threads and wax to simulate the process of the disintegration of life forms.
The circles or ovals are like magnifying glasses centred on fragments of life and death.
Light From Within
In this series Anna Wagner-Ott has moved from the rectangular format to painting paper fragments and sewing thread weavings on her sewing machine or a loom. Once the parts are completed she may sew the weavings onto the surface or disrupt the background layer by meticulously painting intersected thread lines. The intersecting lines are painted or woven tightly forcing viewers to stay on the outside and barely able to see the colors underneath. In another the web modulates and is cut open to let the background breathe. This series continues with the complex dialogue surrounding identity in relation to physical and psychological barriers.