28/2/2010
Samantha Fields
Kim Light, New York
Each of the paintings in 'From a Safe Distance' corresponds to a particular photograph the artist shot during the increasingly frequent Southern California wildfires. In dozens of small canvases, and one large work, the exhibition offers a narrative composed of the multiple perspectives of various wildfires in distinct stages of progression, from hills and mountains engulfed in towering plumes of smoke, to charred defoliated forests still steaming in the wake of the fireline.
Curated by Cecelia Stucker
Kim Light/LightBox is pleased to announce From a Safe Distance,
the gallery's third solo exhibition of Samantha Fields and her first
New York show. In photoreal paintings depicting landscapes
caught in the sudden turbulence of wildfires, Fields continues an
exploration of extraordinary and extreme environments. A series of
new paintings on canvas registers the artist's ongoing encounters
with contemporary ecology, capturing the sublime sensations of
the most vulnerable beauty in the throes of devastating forces of
nature.
Each of the paintings in From a Safe Distance corresponds to a
particular photograph the artist shot during the increasingly
frequent Southern California wildfires. In dozens of small canvases,
and one large work, the exhibition offers a narrative composed of the multiple perspectives of various
wildfires in distinct stages of progression—from hills and mountains engulfed in towering plumes of smoke,
to charred defoliated forests still steaming in the wake of the fireline. The extreme refinement of the
airbrush technique the artist employs—along with slight traces of brushwork—exposes the painterliness of
the fires themselves. Subject to a kind of forced aerial perspective, wherein smoke from the fires gives
every image a hazy luminance; the works faithfully reproduce the billowing modulations of hue and tonality
pouring forth from these natural disasters.
Engaging issues central to depictions of North American landscape since the 19th century Hudson River
school painters, Fields’s paintings capture the sovereignty of the hills and mountains of Southern California
and contain them in moments of sublime rupture. Largely devoid of human presence, there is nevertheless
a powerful sense of trespass in many of these depictions of wildfires, as if they are symptomatic effects of
human-made causes, such as invasive species of vegetation, fire suppression, and ahistorical changes in
climate. The consequences documented in From a Safe Distance call to mind in the same scene both the
vulnerability of an idyllic landscape to the ecological consequences of human activity, and the vulnerability
of civilization once natural disasters are unleashed.
Samantha Fields lives and works in Los Angeles. A graduate of the Cranbrook Academy of Art (MFA) and
the Cleveland Institute of Art (BFA), Fields is a Professor at California State University, Northridge. In
addition to her solo exhibitions in Los Angeles, the artist has exhibited in numerous group shows in the
United States and abroad, including The Armory Center for the Arts (Pasadena, CA), Wignall Museum (San
Bernadino, CA), Solway Jones (Los Angeles, CA), Traywick Contemporary (Berkeley, CA), Melanee
Cooper Gallery (Chicago, IL), Vox Populi (Philadelphia, PA), Jones Center for Contemporary Art
(Austin,TX), Galerie Enholm Englehorn (Vienna, Austria); and the Amelia Museum of Archeology (Umbria,
Italy).
For more information please contact
cecelia@kimlightgallery.com
Reception, Monday, March 1, 6 – 9 pm
Kim Light
300 East 57th ST, NY