Wilson Artists' Group (Kathleen Roman, Kate Tully, Patricia Larkin Green, Meredith Dytch, June Nichols, Margaret Tully, Ann Ponce)
Hidden City by Meredith Dytch
Artist Statement: When I paint the city, the scenes that I choose
to paint are informed by my belief that there is beauty to be found in many
places that aren't normally thought of as having aesthetic value. Abandoned
buildings, rusting viaducts, overgrown vacant lots and trash-filled alleys
present their own authentic face to the world - we just don't usually see them
as places worth paying much attention to. Our eye skips over them as we flash
by in our cars or trains. Sometimes these places are dirty. We don't want to
look too closely.
I come to my art from a background as an
architect and as a fan of Japanese design. Having been an architect has left me
with certain feelings about the built environment - about the way in which we
build it, but it then lives, so to speak, a life of its own, separate from us,
but alongside us. At the same time, being a fan of all things Japanese has
given me an appreciation of the aesthetic philosophy known as wabi-sabi. Wabi
is about the natural, the simple, whatever is closest to nature: a simple clay
pot that may even retain the mark of the potter's thumb. Sabi is about the
beauty inherent in the old, the decaying, the weathered: a wooden barn door
from which most of the paint has peeled.
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