Elizabeth Mooney

Elizabeth Mooney
Visiting Lecturer in Art

Installation view, Q20: Wellesley Faculty Artists, Davis Museum at Wellesley College, Wellesley, MA.

Artist's Statement

The rapid speed in which we navigate and occupy landscape is transformative and destabilizing. My work considers aspects of this pace, and the implications of how we engage the landscape. Within my work, I blur the boundaries of passage and site in order to create spaces that question our relationship with perception, pace, access, and equity.

I am inspired by the history of landscape painting, specifically its relationship to tourism, and its influence on development in the United States. In my research, I explore how technology, travel, and speed alter the way in which we perceive and interact with landscape. I question where traditional ideologies of beauty come from and how they are employed in the construct of landscape. 

The gesture and physicality of mark-making is central in my work. Within my paintings, horizon lines are repeated and manipulated along with a deliberate push and pull between foreground and background. These gestures of abstraction are used to deconstruct and destabilize one’s understanding of place, mirroring the constant shifts occurring in the Anthropocene.

 

I am critical of our accelerated experiences with nature and I am concerned about the long-term implications of this quickened pace. I think about the act of looking with discernment, while considering both the idiosyncrasy and uniformity of that experience.

2007, MFA, California College of the Arts
2001, BFA, Art Institute of Boston (Lesley University)

http://elizabethmooney.com

Elizabeth Mooney, Rising Falling, 2019, Acrylic on wood panel, Courtesy of the artist.

Elizabeth Mooney, Grind, 2020, Metal, MDF, motors, acrylic, wood, and mixed media, Courtesy of the artist.

Elizabeth Mooney, Cut Towards Center, 2019, Acrylic on wood panel, Courtesy of the artist.