Everyone sees landscapes differently. After a lifetime of traversing the world's back roads, rambling across the terra, marveling at all the beauty the scenery has to offer, I am finally able to express my personal vision of the world in series: The Naked Landscape.

When I drive, bike or hike through the countryside near my home in New Hampshire, I see the hills and ridges as sensual bodies, occasionally draped, most often naked. I have learned to paint what I see, so that others may see through my eyes.

After years of recording the oceans, mountains and valleys in a more literal fashion, and have developed an affinity for a landscape that transcends the usual platitudes and allows my environs to morph into a beautiful, living, breathing entity. Using one organic form to represent another, the rugged and eroded lands transform into beings with vitality and soul.  The Naked Landscape helps illustrate the connection between humans and the earth we inhabit.  As Marc Chagall said, "Art picks up where nature ends." 

My husband often carries the load of my obsession with shapes and colors, by keeping other drivers safe while I let my eyes and camera roam. Sometimes we stopped every hundred feet, while winding through the undulating landscapes, for reference photos and quick sketches of varying curves, angles and lighting of the same piece of topography, often revisiting areas to document the changing daylight and seasons. Beginning with these reference photos, I selected scenes for my plein air sessions and then, armed with the photos, sketches and paintings, completed the landscapes in my studio.

The first of this series, entitled "Sensual New Hampshire," was accomplished using a collage of photos and sketches. After immersing myself deep into my right brain, an evocative painting and style emerged, alive with the earth and skies mixed on my palette. The series continued with other sensual shapes, disembodied breasts, hips, parents holding children, some obvious, others obscure.

While my first inspiration for The Naked Landscape occurred near my home in New Hampshire, I often travel to paint, and have replicated the concept in other lands. Over the years, I have visited all 50 states and over 50 countries, soaking up artistic inspiration wherever it came. Occasionally a Naked Landscape emerges in pastel, however while traveling, I primarily use oil applied to archival quality panels and canvas.

Some of the paintings in the series appear to be more classical landscapes than others, but all evoke a sensation of nature's soul. In a crowd of art lovers, I find most spend far more time with these landscapes than with the more realistic paintings, often commenting on the "feeling." When each viewer brings their personal vision to my paintings, allowing their imagination to run wild through The Naked Landscape series, they are able to free their minds and create a unique cerebral experience.