Elizabeth R Gahan

My work is about the seduction, deception, and celebration of beauty. Beauty is a complex and contradictory concept, to be embraced as one of the most important components to enjoying life, yet critically investigated as one of the most dangerous illusions at our fingertips. My paintings and sculptures are both playful and foreboding leaving plenty of room for viewers to interpret freely. I create urban and suburban landscapes manipulating line, color, texture and opacity to consider relationships between the built environment, contemporary cultures and nature. I am concerned with the function of advertising, technology and consumerism in defining our cultural ideals; especially those values most entrenched in our psyche - beauty, luxury, convenience and pleasure. These values directly impact our perceptions of nature and its relationship to the built environment promoting either a sense of awareness, activism or disconnect. In each painting, the color fields stream across the surface while representational imagery floats in space, as if the composition is comprised of constantly shifting components capable of rearranging themselves in any moment. The organic forms both fade into the background and overflow with three-dimensional texture, growing over and morphing into the architectural landscape. That which is perceived to be solid and long-lasting in everyday experience, such as buildings and landscapes, are portrayed as delicate and ephemeral. In addition, that which is human-made and that which is natural are dubiously indistinguishable offering an alternative lens to consider the world we have built.