artist statement

snowbound

Photographs by Lisa M. Robinson

For the past four winters, I have been photographing in the snow. The images from SNOWBOUND describe a cultural landscape in which the objects of our recreation and occupation merge with the natural world while subtly restraining it. In these familiar spaces, transformed in winter not only by a blanket of snow, but also by a state of inactivity, we are offered glimpses of the sublime.

While I am drawn to those structures or human traces that provide refuge or a point of reference in the midst of winter, I am also interested in a Proustian evocation of memory. The backyards, public beaches and parks where I roam are repositories of vague childhood imaginings and experiences that have been frozen in time, waiting for our imaginations to recall them.

In these photographs, a minimalist’s palette combines with a haiku poet’s sensibility.
I seek beauty in plain, simple language by observing ordinary things closely. Below the “ka,” or beautiful surface, lies the “jitsu,” the substantial core. At times, these images become almost monochromatic, distilled to their essential parts not unlike the deepest states of meditation. The palette of blue and orange and seafoam green which leaps from these images is an effective reminder of the human presence that mediates the natural world.

In this technological age of speed and efficiency, virtual experience and image bombardment, these images invite us back to a simpler way of being in the world, by observing our immediate surroundings in a reflective way. These quiet ruminations
are very much informed by a reference to drawing, painting and sculpture. Three-dimensional reality is translated and flattened into two dimensions in the snow, which functions as the ideal positive/negative space. Poles and ropes and footprints in the snow recur throughout this series, functioning like human “marks” that reference drawing on a canvas of reality. Even the objects of my fascination, an aboveground pool or a snow-laden trampoline, function as found sculpture that resonates with human qualities.

While on the surface, these images seem to have captured moments in time, there is an implied suggestion of time passage and life cycles. Within the heart of a spare winter, other seasons emerge- a suspended hammock, empty flowerpots, bubbles of breath breaking through the surface of ice in a frozen man-made pond. These scenes suggest, upon contemplation, the temporal nature of all things. In the midst of seeming emptiness, layers of life and contrast slowly emerge.