Three barns, prior framing, for the series: Rural Reflections. These works alongside additional barns and landscapes are currently exhibiting at Central Bank off 8th & Broadway.
ARTIST STATEMENT
Rural reflections
This collection of reflections on the landscapes, barns and images of Missouri and beyond contains several new paintings that mark my return to my creating art after a pause that was much longer than I had intended. It’s good to be back. My latest works are a series of barn portraits, based on photos I shoot on any and every road trip as I hunt barns along the way. Converting them to the pen & ink and watercolor paintings here has been cathartic in the time of COVID-19 self-quarantine, which included moving back to my home studio from more than a decade at Orr Street Studios. Paintings based on friends’ photos as reference, with permission, are noted as such in the titles.
I feel a deep connection to land and sky, tree lines and rural structures. Growing up on a farm on what was once unending prairie in Northwest Missouri, my memories are of sitting in a feed bunk after chores and watching the sun set behind a windbreak of trees; riding my horse or walking along dirt and gravel roads lined by hedge trees, pastures and grain fields; flying over the land with my dad in his small plane and seeing our farm and fields from a whole new perspective. Both he and the farm are gone; more barns disappear with storms and the passage of time; fields become developments. I hope my reflections bring a flicker of memory, spark a desire to preserve both nature and our rural heritage, or bring a bit of solace and peace in dark times.
CONNECT WITH THE ARTIST
Email: mlcummins@cumminsconsult.com
Website: https://invinciblesummerstudios.com/
