My work seeks to create imagery on multiple dimensions that is at once true to my subject’s form, yet with an additional layer of interpretation. The resulting effect is one of elucidating both the scene’s objective nature as well as its inner essence and the mood it organically creates.

Many of my new pieces are pure landscapes, but some also involve human subjects seamlessly integrated within natural settings with an intent and purpose that is emotive and powerful. I play with both monochromic backdrops as well as vistas that pull the viewer into the piece with gradients of light and depth. It is in part in the detail of my work that the artist’s style is first revealed: painted on the backside of glass, the colors of the images are applied in various coats, inspired in part by Europe’s stained glass windows.

My artistic process cannot be completely predetermined. My technique and conceptual framework is in many ways the polar opposite of many past and current approaches in two important ways. For example, I give my paint in part free rein, as I work in a reverse layering process sometimes obfuscating form with each application. The result is my first layer of paint is often the first image the viewer sees, as opposed to the last brush stroke of an oil painting being the most forward facing. The unveiled result is stunning; just as a forest itself does not evolve as a predetermined collection of trees, my work begins and ends in a similarly natural way—uncalculated yet true to the spirit of my subject’s sublime nature.

Additionally, I have extended my traditional palette of glass and acrylic paint to raise the significance of the naming of my work, in a sense attempting to synergistically bring visual art and prose together. The intent is to not limit the viewer’s experience, but to in fact enhance it, adding another dimension to the piece yet within a framework that is provocative; in a sense a movement away from the relativism embraced by some contemporary artists.

Annabelle Verhoye