Phyllis Ewen

Artist Statement

My 3-dimensional reliefs invite viewers to imagine ourselves within the seascape above and below the surface of the water. In the topographical waterscapes such as The Sea is Boiling  and Drift,  I have  scanned charts and weather maps, altered them in Photoshop, and printed them.  These pigment prints are then cut and reassembled to form imagined waterscapes that highlight the changing nature of our seas; rising waters and melting glaciers – the effects of global warming and human intervention. I add paint, graphite and puzzle pieces. And I those most recent, I have added gestures drawn by hand.  Although maps imply a viewer looking down at the landscape, I hope that the dimensional qualities of my images allow us imagine ourselves within it; that to inhabit the seas as another way of understanding.

Melting glaciers and warming seas have affected the sea floor as well.  In The Deep imagery is drawn from maps of the ocean floor. The depth and texture in these works are both illusion and actual.  Layers are attached with magnets, reflecting the magnetic energy of the earth’s tectonic plates.