Tracy Spadafora

Persistence of Nature Series
 
Images of nature came into my work many years ago. Intrigued by the elegant and complex patterning of leaves and other flora, I began incorporating them in my work as symbols of our natural environment. In my paintings these organic forms are juxtaposed with symbols of our man-made environments, (grids, schematic diagrams, architecture).  The leaves, pods, seeds, etc.., often take on a whimsical quality as they hang, float, fall and reshape their structural surroundings.
 
I work with an ancient wax paint called encaustic, which allows me to layer images and preserve them under the surface.  The obscuring, burying, and excavating of these images within the layers of wax, paint, and collage helps to extend their meaning into the realms of memory and intuition.  In these works natural structures and man-made structures converge and collide, alluding to questions of time, placement, movement, and social structure.  The natural environment has suffered greatly as a result of commercial and industrial development.  Nature struggles to survive and find new life within the continuous sprawl of urban environments.  “Nature” in these paintings shows a likeness to human nature, and, in this broader sense, questions our own ability to adapt to our quickly growing world.  
 
Because the ideas I am exploring are ambiguous I construct my paintings much like poems.  The work is not meant to provide answers, but rather to open the intuitive mind to larger questions concerning our relationship to our natural and man-made environments.