Jeremy Rabus:

In my most recent work, I choose a color to apply, often as an organic shape or a geometric form and then play other colors against it, accumulating layers of paint passages. The strategy is to conceal some areas, and allow the dance between hues to flourish in others.

I then use a power sander to grind away at the layers, revealing fascinating shapes and producing textures that resemble stone, mist, lava, or rivulets. I continue to add color until I achieve a “landscape” that provokes an immediate, visceral response. The finished piece must possess a concrete sense of reality, not necessarily as a faithful representation of landscape from life, but as an immersive optical experience, or encounter.

My goal is to orchestrate these principles of optics within the confines of paint’s material properties - opacity, translucence, fluidity or viscosity - forming an imagined landscape that feels real and present.