My Artistic Practice: Barbara Beshoar McIlrath

My artistic practices all center around direct observation of the natural world, outdoors, near my home in Western Wisconsin, close to Lake Pepin, a natural widening of the Mississippi River, where it expands to 3 miles wide for about 20 miles. I love the sense of urgency that I feel when I know that what I am seeing today will be gone tomorrow.

Working on location

When I can, I work outdoors, acting on a commitment to a place, chosen by instinct. Like everyone, I am attracted to beautiful light: ultramarine blue fragments of river bluffs sliced into vertical rectangles by tree trunk lines. Once I begin drawing, I stop thinking of the river, hills or fields. I switch from an emotional level of response to an analytical process of solving a visual puzzle. I measure land forms and diagram angles of light and shadow, in order to piece together interlocking shapes and place those masses in space. The more time I spend in each location, the more quickly and confidently I am able to map out the spaces and recognize changes that have occurred since I was last there.

Solving the compositional puzzle

The gridded viewfinder helps me select interesting compositions that I then develop into a series of small value studies. Having been trained as a graphic designer, I am very comfortable using a grid system to organize information. In the landscape, it enables me to find alignments and see proportion of the shapes within the rectangle of the composition. Each composition presents a new puzzle to take apart and put together. This playful  investigation pumps energy into the pieces as I respond to unexpected results. When I get  a composition that has the magic (as Robert Mapplethorpe would say) I use the grid again to enlarge the composition onto the canvas or larger sheet of paper. This is the way I begin each piece, whether the subject is still life or landscape.

I rely on the interaction of drawing and painting to document this process of discovery. The artists who have most influenced me are Paul Cezanne, Henri Mattisse, Alberto  Giacometti, Richard Diebenkorn, Fairfield Porter, Louisa Matthiasdottir, and Euan Uglow. In different ways, they all teach me about creating spacial structure in two dimensions through  their serious commitment to the power of observation. Though they each apply paint in different ways, they all seek individual clarification of “truth or reality” of what they see through the distillation of information.  In all of their work you can witness the process of trial and error (measuring, progressively building marks in the attempt to find the right connections, and elimination of the unnecessary) revealing simplification of shape and knowledge of planar structure.

My paintings started to become my own when I discovered the rubber shaper tool, which has a chiseled edge like a spatula. It helped me simplify and excavate the structure, often destroying hours of brush work. I now combine the use of this tool with larger brushes. I also relocate the structure by drawing into the painting with a sepia pencil.

Responding to Changing Light

There is no greater challenge for perceiving and understanding color dynamics than in the living landscape. So much is out of my control, but I try to manage a process that keeps me calm. Setting up an hour or two ahead of the desired time of light to mix paint before putting it on the linen is a soothing ritual. With a good composition and beautiful piles of accurately mixed paint on my palette, I can layer the painting quickly, boldly, and freely. I’d love to be able to make a painting in one three or four hour period of shifting light, however, I usually need to come back again for a series of three or more sessions. Doing a value study on a separate canvas offers guidance when I have to finish the piece in the studio.

Slowing Down

In the winter I need to find ways to connect with the natural world inside, so I bring bulbs, branches and flowers in to study. Working in the studio on still life pieces helps me see more deeply and carefully. It also enables me to build more complex pieces that document a process of seeing over a longer period of time. These objects sprout, grow, and then shrivel through the winter and the pieces reflect these transitions.

I draw and paint for the purpose of distilling the complexity of nature through direct observation. I hope that my very subjective and personal process of seeing the world reveals, through the work, a deeper level of perception that viewers will appreciate.