sage tucker-ketcham
(b. 1978, Randolph, VT) is a 14th-generation Vermont native who builds lush scenes of foliage through layered paintings of her environment. Long daily meditative walks inform the canvas as weeds and native plants emerge, flourishing from memory. Often disregarded yet resiliently growing in unexpected places, blooms of daisies, black-eyed Susans and grasses are given ample opportunity to thrive on the canvas. Their bold, saturated hues plume and expand through the artist's vibrantly painted biospheres. Shedding expectations of natural color, Tucker-Ketcham allows the atmosphere to actively engage with the flora to become a central character of its own.
Created through a slow process of overlaying thin applications of oil paint, glazes and sprays, the canvas conveys ethereal tension within unique, surreal ecosystems. Invoking the therapeutic value in the act of seeing, as in the phenomena of ‘soft-fascination’ (a cognitive state of effortless observation and gentle engagement often experience in nature), this painter considers the environment as a visual medicine. Here, Tucker-Ketcham’s resolute paintings become a purposeful question of time, nature’s cycles, and the journey of discovering a human’s place amongst the landscape.
