ARTIST STATEMENT

My paintings are equal parts invention and description.  The challenge I set for myself is to find the balance, the sweet spot between naturalism and convincing invention while remaining true to my descriptive language.

This interest in the natural world and a world of my own creation has been a unifying theme in my work for many years.  I have returned again and again to paint natural objects such as stones, leaves, feathers and twigs, which sometimes float with an improbable weightlessness against invented skies.  In the last few years I have been enamored with colorful, patterned swatches of cloth and in some of these paintings the fabric forms itself into imaginary waves or goddess-like totemic figures. In this body of work the images have naturally formed themselves into pairs, one responding to the other and becoming duets.

I imagine the natural world existing apart from our human preoccupations, arranging and rearranging itself, rising, falling, defying gravity at will.  I find solace in the constancy of natural life forces that will endure, adapt and change in spite of our self-inflicted wounds.  For myself, it’s about balance: to keep one’s eye on the magic unfolding in the peeling bark on a tree or a glistening stone on a seashore, while looking heavenward at Camus’ “benign indifference of the universe.”  And so, as always, I remind myself to pick up my brush and be quiet.  Listen, touch, pay attention.

Faith Scott Jessup’s Duets, 2025