ARTIST STATEMENT
My paintings, drawings, and mixed-media work have been an evolving exploration of the tension between the constructive and destructive elements of contemporary societies ~ using earth, water, air, and fire as visual metaphors to illustrate the man-made social constructs of our age and their relationship to the natural order.
“I assemble objects, sculpt forms, and paint pictures of what speaks of the complexity of the human condition embedded in the natural and man-made order of things. The stories come to me one dream at a time in the tradition of visual storytelling. ”
I reveal intimate and universal societal experiences of womanhood and environmentalism that exert a symbiotic pull on our international political equilibrium. The exploration of the natural world fighting to survive in a contemporary society can be beautiful in its mission, but hideous in its aftermath. What does it mean to be part of planet Earth in the post-industrial Information Age with so much at stake?
The thread that weaves my work together over the years engages with the rhythm of changing tides, forward in strengthening the courage to make necessary adjustments for change and backward in the desire to quell it and maintain the status quo; hope is never abandoned, rather, it is built on the collective actions of engaged people everywhere.
Some refer to this epoch as the Anthropocene, a period of evolution when human activity becomes the dominant influence over the natural world order. As Dr. Jane Goodall, the English primatologist and anthropologist, said, “hope isn't something passive. It's a force we create through our choices, our compassion, and our courage.”
The interconnectedness of all living things, examined in this body of work, must be written in a new sacred text, one that values life’s diversity with nothing at the center of the concentric circle, and I contend that artists have a role to play in that pursuit.
~ Sharon Coughran