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David Shelton Gallery

Images (click to enlarge)

Bight, Sara Frantz
Bight (detail), Sara Frantz
Bight (detail), Sara Frantz
Route 1, Iceland, Sara Frantz
Route 1, Iceland (detail), Sara Frantz
Route 1, Iceland (detail), Sara Frantz
San Antonio Commute, Sara Frantz
San Antonio Commute (detail), Sara Frantz
San Antonio Commute (detail), Sara Frantz
San Antonio Commute (detail), Sara Frantz
Encaustic 5, Sara Frantz
Winkelman, TX, Sara Frantz
I-37 to Corpus Christi 2, Sara Frantz
Islandscape 11, Sara Frantz

Sara Frantz

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Statement

Travel, landscape and nature (real or imagined) are always the driving forces in my work.  My most recent collection of drawings is based on the raw landscapes of Iceland and West Texas.  These graphite on paper drawings, coin sized homes isolated on white paper, started in the summer of 2008 while attending a residency in a small fishing village on the north side of Iceland. I was overwhelmed by the ineffable grandeur of Icelandic landscape. Between the harsh beauty and lack of trees, the only markers of space were the clusters of homes. 

I omit all vegetation, focusing on the man-made, to emphasize what is not drawn.  The houses are the only sense of scale on the otherwise scale-less nature.   On returning to Austin, I traveled to West Texas, a landscape that feels similar in grandiosity to that of Iceland, for research to continue this series. This summer, I traveled to Pacific Northwest with similar intentions.  The starkly different settings are linked in my mind because of the shared ruggedness, isolation of the landscapes themselves, and the pioneers that originally settled in the humbling magnitude. 

The newest painting series is derivative of the same travels that produce the above-mentioned drawings. There is something appealing to me about the shift one sees along a route.  A gradual progression and eventually a blending of towns, architecture, rivers, and forests in which you can almost read the history of an area in its landscape. Where each drawing is a very specific place, the painting is a conglomeration or accumulation of the road trip in between.   These paintings explore the similar themes of landscape, consumption, space, and forced decorative imitation of nature that occurs in all my work.