Fascinating bucolic landscapes inspired by the idyllic 18th and 19th century aesthetic in pictures of great painters, such as Albert Bierstadt and Frederic Edwin Church, made on the surfaces of cut tree trunks by Hawaiian artist Alison Moritsugu.
In my log paintings, I examine the contrivances found in landscape paintings of the 18th and 19th centuries. These landscapes, by artists such as Albert Bierstadt and Frederic Edwin Church, were deeply rooted in the political constructs of the time and depicted the land as a bountiful Eden, a limitless frontier ripe for conquest. I take these images out of their familiar context, the framed canvas, and paint directly on wood slices with bark intact. These landscapes appear as an homage to the idyllic art of the Hudson River School yet, by viewing the painting’s surface, the cross-section of a tree, any sense of nostalgia or celebration of nature is countered by the evidence of its destruction.
Alison Moritsugu