Ali Silverstein - Possible Homes

1. Things
As I pronounce this word (do you hear?) a stillness forms; the stillness surrounding Things. All movement comes to rest, turns into contour, and out of past and future time something lasting is composed: space, the great tranquility of Things which nothing drives onwards. (Rilke)

Coyote Fence
- 6 x 8 feet
- Acrylic on Canvas
- •
Landscape Red and Blue Regions
- 5 x 7.5 feet
- Acrylic on Canvas
- •
Tropical Six Regions
- 6 x 8 feet
- Acrylic on Canvas
- •
Taos Mountain With Cows
- 4 x 6 feet
- Acrylic on Canvas
- •
Bouganvilla
- 4 x 6 feet
- Acrylic on Canvas
Taos Christmas Lights
- 6 x 8 feet
- Acrylic on Canvas
- •

Possible Homes

Landscapes, are possible homes. Possible environments to exist in. Possible lives. Like cinema, they offer the notion: you could be here, walking through this park, sitting on this bed, holding this hand...

Sometimes I add what I call "regions" -- translucent or opaque shapes of color -- onto the image. This highlights the contrast between illusionistic space (and the romantic era of landscape painting) and the flatness of the picture plane. This seems to be somewhere we can live, but not quite -- not here, in this flat space, where all is surface (like cinema, again).

Is the painting an object or a window? The "region" is like the flatness of the windowpane, through which you gaze at the world outside. It reminds you where you are -- inside -- and that the possibility of a parallel or other life is elsewhere -- through a window.

Coyote Fence

Landscape Red and Blue Regions

Tropical Six Regions

Taos Mountain With Cows

Bouganvilla

Taos Christmas Lights