What I love about water – ocean, lake, river, waterfall – is how it is always changing. Plus ça change, plus c’est la même. Change is inevitable. The challenge is how to capture the depth, the movement. In my abstract, acrylic paintings, water sometimes looks like water, but it also sometimes looks like space or sky. Honestly, it’s not something I always control. Some paintings just happen.
What I love about water – ocean, lake, river, waterfall – is how it is always changing. Plus ça change, plus c’est la même. Change is inevitable. The challenge is how to capture the depth, the movement. In my abstract, acrylic paintings, water sometimes looks like water, but it also sometimes looks like space or sky. Honestly, it’s not something I always control. Some paintings just happen.
RUTH HURD
FINE ART
New Zealand
New Zealand is an inspiration, in many ways. Artistically: beautiful and sometimes improbable looking trees; so much green, yet also orange and brown and silver in the volcanic areas. Ecologically: NZ is incredibly varied: rainforests, some of which look positively prehistoric; volcanic areas that look incredibly alien; glaciers advancing and retreating at amazing speeds; the Southern Alps (aptly named); some 2000 earthquakes each year...
And the people are fascinating. NZ is a frontier society and a mecca for people interested in extreme sports (bungee jumping is just the beginning). They are also incredibly caring about protecting their environment, recycling with a vengeance and making sure that their wild areas are preserved. And art is everywhere: the myriad galleries in Hokitika, the public art everywhere in Christchurch helping to compensate for the pervasive damage done by the 2011 earthquake, the Maori portraits in the Auckland Art Gallery. Truly impressive.
More of my NZ inspired paintings can be found under "Water/Space."
