Jean Wiecha: Let's Come Back Again Tomorrow

When I’m by the shore and hold very still, I’m aware that everything is moving around me. I love this. The sun climbs, clouds pile and scatter, shadows lengthen. The water churns and rests, rises and falls. Rocks are naked at the ebb tide but hidden at the full. I used to wish things would stay still long enough to paint them, but now I experience this restless quality as a source of the coast’s beauty and power. It’s what drives me to paint it. In every moment, the play of sky, sand, water, and rocks is unique and unrepeatable.

Each of these paintings started with a moment when something about the alignment of light, land and water jolted my senses, bringing awe, or joy, or fear or excitement. I recorded those moments in quick sketches and photos. In the studio, I improvised from the original images, trying to recapture what I saw and felt. I then experimented with larger compositions until I was ready to commit to the final paintings. It’s a long, slow, circuitous process but there is a certain meditative satisfaction to it and in any event I can’t help painting this way. It’s what I do. As these paintings developed, I tried to be both representational and abstract, and to prioritize building energy into the compositions over fidelity to detail. I tried to capture that sense of a moment that wouldn’t last, of standing still while everything changed around me.