Series: Le Paysage Laid
As a landscape artist, I am drawn to the beauty of the natural world.
But not every landscape is beautiful.
Human activity—sometimes deliberate, sometimes careless, and sometimes undertaken without any understanding of its eventual consequences—can profoundly alter a landscape. Forests are cleared, waterways are polluted, habitats are damaged, and places that were once beautiful can become something very different.
For The Ugly Landscape, I began with landscapes marked by this kind of damage. I researched each place or event to identify a likely human cause, then created a painting in response to what I found.
Each painting is named not for the landscape it depicts, but for the person, company, industry, or action responsible for its ruin.
The series asks us to look at landscapes differently: not only at what is beautiful, but at what has been lost—and at the human choices that helped shape what remains.
Clear-cut logging dramatically alters a forest landscape. In the Pacific Northwest, clear-cutting can contribute to erosion, habitat and biodiversity loss, and rising stream temperatures when the shade provided by trees is removed. Triangle Pacific represents the timber industry responsible for transforming forests like this one.
Eastern Washington’s dryland farms produce enormous quantities of soft white wheat. When drought, exposed soil, and high winds coincide, the region can experience severe dust storms, or haboobs. Mitsui & Co., a major processor and exporter of Washington wheat, represents the agricultural system connected to this altered landscape.
Lost and abandoned fishing gear continues to trap marine wildlife long after it has ceased to serve its original purpose. Seals and other animals are regularly found entangled in discarded nets and fishing debris and must sometimes be rescued. Trident Seafoods represents the commercial fishing industry that produces and uses this gear.