PERSPECTIVES
A GROUP EXHIBITION
Alexis Serio, Jane Davies & Caleb Kenna

My work is a metaphor for time, memory, and perception. My paintings are philosophical and formal investigations about the visual perception of light and color, the personal experience of remembering and inventing, and the natural illusiveness of time. My paintings are selective and ideals of the truth, yet they are still the truth. They are reflections of my past, the events that I have drawn out as precious time and the stories of beauty I wish to share with the viewer. I seek imagery that is constantly moving such as light and water as a platform to explore such philosophies. I do not provide a true foothold beyond a horizon line or a suggested landscape palette for which to understand my paintings. Still, the viewer usually recognizes a particular place he or she has seen before. Through the execution of illusion and abstraction, I cultivate the personal experience of remembrance for the viewer

I like to throw together disparate visual elements – lines, shapes, masses, for example – as if they washed up on the beach in a random arrangement, and then see how I can make some visual sense of them, formally. “Making sense” involves layering and layering, adding and painting over, pursuing a few dead-end directions, before something clicks, and the painting takes shape. The result is unpredictable, of course, and always surprising to me. It is only after the fact that I relate the visual content to a specific feeling or place, at which point I can sometimes assign pieces their titles. It feels like throwing a hypothesis into the wind, and seeing it get tossed around before returning with a tentative answer to a different question.

One sign of a dedicated photographer is their dirty knees, because they are often kneeling on the ground to capture a low angle. Another giveaway for a serious photographer is that they always have a step ladder on hand for the next shoot. In addition to light, color and timing, perspective is one of the fundamental building blocks of photography. In the old days I would hire an airplane once or twice a year to make photos above the Green Mountains. Now I set up my drone, launch it into the sky and soar with the birds looking for new aerial perspectives of Vermont.