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Landscape as metaphor

Date

2007

Authors

Hopkins, Katharine Colona, author

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Abstract

I am intrigued with the capacity for landscape to serve as a point of reference to our being in society. Through our relationship with landscape, our contemporary values, priorities, religion, and interactions are revealed. But landscape does more than reflect our contemporary world; it endures and reflects the history of human experiences through traces of past civilizations, and through scars of human activity and manipulation. Memory and time are reflected in my images, a reminder that the only true permanence of civilization is the land itself. Traces of past constructions --bridges, towers, fencing, trenches--serve as evidence of the cycles of civilizations. The landscape becomes an intimate part of our human psyche. Tension and paradox pervade my images. I am infatuated with foreboding shadows of black that contrast with the clean white of blank paper. Monumental structures are contrasted with delicate, almost erased pencil or drypoint lines. In places, line and form disengages from our logical sense of perspective; here, I question our perceptions and understanding of permanence and scale. Respite is found in the vast horizons, space to breathe and a timelessness that transcends our constructed world. In the end, the landscape serves as a metaphor for our shared human experience.

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