Bio:
Noelle Phares brings a fresh perspective into her landscape paintings through an examination of the tension between organic and synthetic. As an environmental scientist by training, she allows the same topics that drove her work in the natural sciences to seep into her creative work. Her body of work combines landscape elements with structural geometry to create fractured architectural landscapes that explore the ever-encroaching presence of humanity into previously pristine open spaces. She holds a BS in Biochemistry and an MS in Environmental Science. She has been painting throughout the American West over the last decade, and currently lives and paints full-time out of Denver, Colorado.
Statement:
There is so much light and also so much dark in this life. The past year provided more evidence of this than the average in our present era, but it is true at all times. The foundation of my recent work has been an exploration of this truth. Some pieces are nostalgic, warm interpretations of places that have held my heart in times of peace. Others are darker explorations of the harsher realities of life – beautiful places washed over by the sinister haze of modern dilemma. Whatever view lies before us, our individual experiences dictate our perceptions of them. Underneath these hazy layers of perception is a miraculous universe indeed.
The past year spent in lockdown has changed the way I see the landscapes that are immediately accessible to me. Suddenly, the park down the street is so much more than just a place to run the dog a couple times a week - it is a sweet respite from the monotony of numbing routine within the confines of home, it is new breath. It is brimming with every color, in a constant state of flux. It provides brief passage for running water, particles that have endured endless travel through streams and aquifers and porous rock for billions of years. It hosts countless blades of grass, each one the “journeywork of stars”, as the great poet Walt Whitman put it. It is freedom. It is finally as glorious as it has been all along.
