Scott Espeseth
These works are drawings, made with ivory black watercolor on paper. For me, drawing is about transparency, the most direct route from an idea to the paper. Watercolor pushes back on my obsessive tendencies, requiring me to make compromises and not lose the forest for the trees. The drawings are inspired by chance encounters with objects, spaces, or events that trigger moments of clarity, where they suddenly appear to be intensely strange, or intensely beautiful. I attempt to stage these moments, either on site or in the studio, but inevitably I end up making changes. Through the process of careful setup and sustained looking, measuring, and drawing, I find a new clarity in the act of making. The images are animated by a consciousness lurking in the atmosphere, as though the membrane between two worlds has worn thin. My subconscious seems to be trying to tell me something through the choices I make in the studio, and I watch themes emerge—memory, loss, change, and the fantastic.