DAVID T. ALEXANDER | Inscapes and the Persistence of Nature
Inscape, the innate uniqueness of a thing (object, person or place), is held within and revealed without by Instress, the unifying and singular force of all life in the universe.* It is the enigma of the land, as defined by these complimentary concepts of Inscape and Instress (as one-of-a-kind and one-and-the-same), that David T. Alexander masterfully captures in his mark making.
Alexander’s art is fueled by the land’s mystery; even as his understanding of geology, geography, water meeting land meeting sky from all of his many exploratory trips to several continents, finds the essential mysteries are found in one and all. In this way, he paints the specificity of a place knowing the overarching nature of the elements (i.g. water and land) are the same.
The artist’s latest work is inspired by his explorations of New Mexico, a state he first visited in 1996 and to which he felt immediately drawn. Landscapes that clearly reflect the rich earth tones and iconic vistas of the arid Southwest—are actually astute observations of water in the desert. The element’s relationship and interaction with the land is, as Alexander says, “basically a reflection of anywhere.”
Drawing on site and in the studio, taking many photos of places visited time and time again, eventually Alexander feels satisfied with what he understands of an area. The artist refers to those images while using brushes, trowels, sponges, and other tools to push, pull, and even extract paint, until his re-imaginings of the layers of soil, rock, and color eventually emerge. And just as time, erosion, and water constantly transform the surfaces of the earth, Alexander repeatedly changes and exaggerates the shapes, textures, and energy of the land with brushstrokes and paint.
“When it rains in the desert, the top layer of pigment in the soil gets washed down and runs over the other colors by gravity, like a brush veil of color from the top distributes the color to the bottom, ” Alexander explains, remembering a time when he saw the ochres, grays, and whites of a New Mexico cliff stacked atop one another, changing as it mixes with the color beneath. “That’s a thrill,” he says—“and it’s not just the way it looks, but the way it feels in my experience…It is the dynamics and format of the painting itself which creates an understanding of the land and culture. Things such as the crust of a hot land’s pigment are like colors of chiles, maize in unique shapes created by erosion. These things are what helped me create images of a land in flux.”
* as described by poet/theologian, Gerard Manly Hopkins
