Tracey LaneArtist Statement My paintings are a celebration of the mystery of nature and the promise and complexity of life, including our own, that exists in nature. My work is about the experience of light and shadow, color and texture, the play between the seen and the unseen, between memory and imagination. I am most inspired by the quiet drama of nature; trees bending toward the light, silent reflections, sunlight breaking through clouds. More recently, I have been inspired by Gustav Klimt’s birch and beech forest paintings in which rhythm pulsates, trunks undulate, and you can feel the texture and pattern of the bark.The work reflects a personal history; childhood summers spent on Jekyll Island, GA where live oaks drip Spanish moss and marsh meets ocean; countless walks in my family’s 14 acre forest where I developed my love of trees, birds and other wildlife. In 1976, when I was thirteen, my grandparents gave me a horse and I rode him all over the property (which was 23 acres at one time). I was an adult living on my own by the time my parents built a light-filled contemporary house in those woods, just down the hill from my grandparent’s home. I will never forget the long winding drive through the pines, past my grandparent’s house and down the hill to our house. Family lore has it that I stopped my grandparents from cutting down two magnificent trees whose roots they thought were buckling the driveway. They stood like sentinels on either side of our driveway and would stand there still had the government not decided that they wanted the property for a school, using eminent domain to force my mother to sell in 2016. In the forest paintings, my compositions often feature two prominent trees in the foreground.Forests are magical and healing places to me; there is so much beyond what you can actually see, hear, smell, touch, all the creatures and microorganisms that are there but hidden and it's that essence that I am attempting to capture with gesture, color and texture. I work mostly on wood panels, sometimes using brushes and other times palette knives, combining heavy, thickly applied paint with watery washes that drip randomly. I build up layers of paint and then scrape it away so that subtle traces of previous marks remain. This process enables me to capture the spirit of the subject, its wildness. For wildness, as Bill McKibben writes in The End of Nature, stirs the imagination and creates in us "the sense that we are part of something with roots stretching back nearly forever, and branches reaching forward just as far." Tracey Lane Education2017-Present FAWS Atelier with New York artist Michael David2003/2004 Mass Art, Art New England Summer Program-Painting, Bennington, VT1997 MA, Art History, Emory University, Atlanta, GA1986 BA, Art History, Emory University Exhibitions2018 Howard Mandville Gallery, Kirkland, WA, Small Works Show, group show2018 19th Annual Art Papers Show & Auction, Atlanta, GA, Collector’s Preview2017 Howard Mandville Gallery, Kirkland, WA, Contemporary Showcase, group show2016 Howard Mandville Gallery, Kirkland, WA, group show2015 Jules Place, Boston, MA, group show2015 Howard Mandville Gallery, Kirkland, WA, joint show2014 Howard Mandville Gallery, Kirkland, WA, group show2013 Jules Place, Boston, MA, group show2013 Pryor Fine Art, Atlanta, GA, joint show2012 Coda Gallery, Park City, Utah, joint show2012 Pryor Fine Art, Atlanta, GA, Flora and Fauna, group show2012 Jules Place, Boston, MA, group show2010 Lakind Fine Art, Santa Fe, NM, solo show2010 Jules Place, Boston, MA, group show2010 Coda Gallery, Park City, UT, joint show2009 Gallery One, Nashville, TN, joint show2009 Lakind Fine Art, Santa Fe, NM, group show2009 Bennett Street Gallery, Atlanta, GA, joint show2009 Chicago Art Source, Chicago, IL, group show2008 Bennett Street Gallery, Atlanta, GA, group show2008 Coda Gallery, New York, NY, solo show2007 Coda Gallery, Park City, UT, solo show2007 Coda Gallery, New York, NY, solo show2006 Gallery One, Nashville, TN, joint show2006 Coda Gallery, Park City, Utah, solo show2006 Coda Gallery, New York, NY, solo show2005 Mason Murer Fine Art, Atlanta, GA, solo show2005 Chicago Art Source, Chicago, IL, joint show2005 Coda Gallery, New York, NY, solo show2005 Kentucky Museum of Art and Craft, The Ever-Changing Landscape, group show2004 Mason Murer Fine Art, Atlanta, Georgia, group show2003 Studio E Gallery, Jupiter, Florida, joint show2003 Modern Primitive Gallery, Atlanta, Georgia, solo show2002 Modern Primitive Gallery, group show2002 Political Woman, Juried Show, Woman Made Gallery, Chicago, IllinoisPublications/Awards Modern Luxury Interiors Atlanta, 2016, artwork in home featured in "Neutral Territory, California Cool" Traditional Home, April 2014, artwork in home featured in "Playing with Pastels" Green Art: Roots, Trees, and Leaves, by Ashley Rooney, published by Schiffer Publishing Ltd. 2014 SouthwestArt Magazine, December 2012, show preview "Tracey Lane and Kim Brown" American Art Collector, December 2012, show preview "Observations of Surroundings" 100 Southern Artists, by Ashley Rooney, published by Schiffer Publishing Ltd. 2012 SouthwestArt Magazine, September 2008, featured in "Best of the West" SouthwestArt Magazine, February 2007, featured in article "Tales of the Trees: Six Artists Describe Their Attraction to Cottonwoods, Aspens, and More" Southern Accents Magazine, January/February 2007 Today's Custom Home Magazine, Spring 2006 Better Homes and Gardens: Special Decorating Issue, Winter 2005