Karla Wozniak / Statement

I make paintings about how the American landscape looks today. The places I depict in these works are specific yet general: the sprawl of a spring break beach town, a view of a strip as seen from the car, the architecture of a highway rest stop.

These paintings are at once fabrications, conflations and literal depictions, records of the places I've traveled to and through. They are also about painting itself- about speed, slowness, touch, spatial expanse and compression. Of equal importance is what isn’t depicted- disappearing vernacular and natural landscapes. The complexity of these works arises from competing impulses- a love of exploration tempered by a measured, almost anthropological realism. This duality is further complicated by my intuitive approach to making.

Although my work often depicts standardized and mundane spaces, it has a quirky, handmade quality, and thus highlights localism and an individual's unique relationship to landscape.