Elizabeth Hack
www.elizabethhack.com
Green Meets Wave Blue
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Artist's Statement
Looking at the Pacific Ocean from the steep bluffs in Northern California I am struck by how vast and still it looks. Yet when you walk along the seashore and look more closely you will see its waves moving and crashing. My "Wave" series paintings are inspired by these boundless and ever changing forms. Not only does the environmental beauty of the ocean enliven us but it is critical for our survival. So many resources it provides for us. My piece, entitled "Green Meets Wave Blue" expresses my reverence and concerns for our great waters.
BiographyElizabeth Hack lays down color and texture onto surfaces with a transfixed awareness that captures every detail of the hand, pen and palette knife. These "excavations" leave no stroke, line, or color unturned. The strong horizontal compositions of her "Wave Series" and corresponding series, "Wave: The Other Side" simultaneously evoke motion and stillness.
Hack states, "The ocean from a distance looks vast and still and yet up close reveals its waves moving and crashing." Born in Frankfurt, Germany in a military hospital, Hack's family moved twenty times throughout the US and Europe. The constant necessity of movement balanced with a need for stability has developed into a rich visual vocabulary for Hack's work. Each "sculpted" painting shows a new aspect of the artist's meditative stance.
Finally settling in Berkeley, California Hack became a regular visitor of the northern coastal town Sea Ranch. The Wave Series was begun there and continues to develop with "Wave: The Other Side". Both Series can be interpreted as a play between ocean, landscape and pure abstraction.
This piece is installed in location #31 located here.