Formation

Formation Series

by LaDawna Whiteside

mixed media on linen

For detailed information on individual paintings go to:

http://ladawnawhiteside.com/projects/paintings/formation/

 Landscape abstraction continues to be the primary focus of my artwork. My recent series, Formation, recalls the familiar geological landscape where I live in the Central United States. Arkansas is known for its landscape and natural beauty. To me, abstract painting allows me to visually dissect the landscape and provides an opportunity to communicate through sensory experiences. As my paintings take form, my relationship with the earth continues to evolve over time.

Northwest Arkansas is part of an expansive geological site referred to as the U. S. Interior Highlands situated between the Eastern Appalachians and the Western Rocky Mountains. Building railroads and highways across the United States required blasting through rock formations exposing geological cross sections creating greater access to rural areas once inhabited primarily by natives and my kinfolk.

The Formation Series is intended to pay homage to the geological landscape. Referencing a tonal color palette, I weave paint into layers, subtly shifting back and forth between surface and depth. It is a mapping process with neutral pigments as I spread paint across the surface directionally, to the north, south, east and west. I look beyond obvious beauty toward feeling a connection to the landscape for its powerful energy developing over billions of years and hosting countless life forms. I am reminded that what lies beneath supports what lives above.

From the water’s edge, trickling streams and creeks, lined with rocks and boulders, quenching the thirst of: flora and fauna, including ferns and fungi, as well as, native hardwoods: the Sugar Maple, Shag Bark Hickory and Black Walnut trees. I consider the idea that the human body and experience replicates the landscape topography’s peaks and valleys. I am also reminded that my body is a fragment within this landscape, existing for a delicate whisper in time.

And to the contrary:

“From my rotting body, flowers shall grow and I am in them and that is eternity.”

—Edvard Munch

Body: Flesh and Bone Graphite on Paper Arkansas Tech University

Body: Flesh and Bone

Drawing Installation:

By LaDawna Whiteside

Graphite on paper, 2016

5 parts, varied dimensions

Body: Flesh and Bone is an abstract, genderless, figurative drawing composition. Figure drawing requires that one look at shape relationships to construct form. Whether it is toward the goals of form, function or both, most everyone has the capacity to build a body to a certain degree. We are each given a starting point or framework that can be transformed into a version that is healthy or not, based on personal quests and decisions. In my recent drawing Body: Flesh and Bone, graphite is used to create line and form on paper. Paper with graphite lines forming rounded arcs recalls the curved lines forming to muscle fibers. Each drawing starts with a predetermined length and width and then line work begins in vertical and horizontal repetition.

Healthy bodies are designed to move. Movement and physical activity are essential to mind and body awareness that is critical to our existence. Body: Flesh and Bone is an installation that is intended to move into different positions each time it is placed on view, just as the human body is continually moving and changing proportions and dimensions over time. The installation also contains varied interchangeable parts. The woven paper and graphite engrained sections may even split or gradually reconnect as it is placed in unique positions each time it is considered and constructed for viewing.

Genderless, the abstract drawing installation aims to open up ideas about the body beyond sexuality toward functional human figures in action. What are the challenges that we face as individuals with our own bodies? Why are we critical of our own body and how can we learn to embrace it for the functional thinking machine that it is? As in this drawing installation, all bodies have lines and curves with varied degrees of volume. Learning about the body by placing emphasis on health and nutrition awareness is essential to building the body desirable to live in.

Looking at the body within the realm of form and function is one starting place for every individual to express who they are and what they are about. Selfies and mirrors don’t always seem real or accurate, but can be versions of how we might be perceived. Our physical bodies speak volumes about who we are, bringing us to a place where we might ultimately find and become ourselves.