Driving Force Mechanism
Clouds and Plates
I began studying landscapes at the horizon line. Visually, it becomes the place where two great forms come together displaying dichotomies, narratives, and interactions. From the horizon, I moved to a series of snowscapes and clouds. The snow represents a communication between the atmosphere and the earth as it suppresses, descends, paints, and even ejaculates on the ground below.
I moved from th e Bay Area to the Pacific Northwest and was highly influenced by the surrounding mountains. After studying and sketching plate tectonics I developed a process to depict different types of plate boundaries including the subduction boundary, present in the Pacific Northwest where the Juan De Fuca Plate moves beneath the North American Plate, forming the Olympic Mountain Range and the Cascade Mountain Range. My depiction of these landscape systems explores the relationships between epic structures, atmosphere and geology, reinterpreting and animating their processes.
My work incorporates found objects, studio refuse, and layered collage within. The more layers that build up, the more teeming it becomes. Though sculptural, drawing and form are essential. I also depend on expressionism and abstraction to flesh out my images. Expressionism’s intuitive process and raw emotive aesthetic help me depict a mysterious brooding nature. This landscape is chaotic, bubbling, lustful and hectic. It is important to me to relate the human experience back to the natural world, to counteract the notion that civilization has been divided from it. Brimming with love, sex, joy, anxiety, struggle and wonder, humanity and society are ripe with the same intensity that the natural world is most revered for.
Isaac Quigley
2012