Recent work

The American landscape is cloaked in cultural opacities and cluttered with human debris. I contend that no one with a twentieth-first century eye can see through the layers of artificial meaning and histories we have imposed onto this finally impenetrable continent. So, rather than trying for that ever-elusive glimpse of a landscape or history in its purity, I choose to paint the perceptions and impositions between us and a place we cannot know. 

In my paintings of Utah, America, and other continents, I am far more concerned with representing and questioning cultural and visual expectations than with illustrating a scene. In a sense, my paintings and drawings are anthropological; in them, I often dwell on the values, activities, and events of ancient and contemporary cultures, "tracing" the traces they left behind. I am especially intrigued by the events through time that tie seemingly unrelated people and events together in broad cycles: large migrations of people, historic battles, contemporary civilizations inhabiting the remains of ancient buildings, a  "promised land" inhabited by many self chosen peoples that either prosper or suffer because of their activities on the land.

All of my work, in some way or another, is about landscape and how we see ourselves through it and impose our values on it. My paintings are both referential and highly interpretive, depicting panoramic views of specific locations. They deal with our perceptions of time, social and environmental history, and tend to look like maps, but my "maps" are not accurate according to cartographic expectations. These are maps of time, culture, dreams, perceptions, the future, and how we wish to see ourselves and our history. They invite the viewer to become lost in them and then to make conscious and intuitive sense of the perceptual environment. I twist perspective, visually and historically. Because of the juxtaposing of unrelated buildings and events, each scene could be hundreds of years in the past, or in the process of being constructed, or in the future after everything has been torn down, destroyed, or worn away.  All objects, as well as time, history, memory, and perceptions are present in these paintings. 
Feel free to contact me if you have any questions about the paintings, pricing, or commissions. 801 809-1951  or markengland51@gmail.com