Acacia Alder
Artist Bio/Statement
A painter of contemporary landscapes, Acacia Alder has made art in one or another form for more than three decades.
As a child in rural Ohio, Acacia had learned early on about the immediacy of color and texture while exploring the open fields surrounding her family home. "Although I adored the beautifully tended flowers in my parents' garden, it was the open fields that grabbed my heart. Wild grasses, thistles, great tangles of barbs and berries. Years later, when I picked up a pen or a brush, it was the memories of wildness that called me."
As a young student she studied architecture at Kent State University, also taking an interest in fine art. As the fates would have it, she did not become an artist until later in life. Other life choices took precedence, marriage and the birth of children. During a vacation to the Southwest in the 70's, she was fascinated by the exotic landscape and endless horizons. Ready for a change of scene, she and her family soon moved from Ohio to Arizona. In the new land one of her first artistic attractions was to a southwestern jewelry-making tradition abundantly suppled by metals, minerals and semi-precious stones close at hand. Inspired, she had found her first formal art form, the design and making of handcrafted jewelry, an activity she pursued for many years.
After a time, another compelling inner voice called her. The stunning character of the Southwestern land and its unusual and unique life forms cried out for a larger canvas. She had over the years become an avid hiker and explorer of her new home; now she began to observe with the eyes of a painter. She traveled Arizona, explored New Mexico and fell in love with Southern Utah. She visited deserts, mountains and canyons, gathering artistic impressions from all she saw.
To facilitate her transition to painting, she found art instruction in a grassroots group founded by Andy Rush, a gifted, dedicated teacher and ex university art professor. Influenced by the Fauvists and masters like Cezanne and Van Gogh, Acacia's early work in pastel drew forth a lively, colorful, highly energized style. By the mid 1990's she was exhibiting landscapes in both pastel and acrylic. Responding to study with painter Jim Waid, she turned to acrylic painting on a larger scale, sculpting the surface with acrylic gel, setting up the composition with three dimensional rhythm and texture.
Of her work the artist says: "I want my paintings to speak with the spirit of the land, whose first language is that of color, shape, and movement. I like to paint on the edge between abstract and real. Landscape becomes more than the sum of its parts. It is the living earth, a magical place interwoven with intriguing life forms, colorful energy and ever-changing light. My intention is that the painted landscape evoke for the viewer something of what inspires me; an intimate relationship with a mystical and numinous land. The painted surface becomes an intersection of the known and unknown. At one and the same time, I am painter and viewer. I create the painting and "walk" into it to explore. It is an enriching and spiritual experience."
Acacia's work is in many collections throughout the United States and Canada.
