Lily Prince

My acrylic or gouache paintings on canvas or paper are inspired by places of significance to me where I have traveled to and through. I take various multiple sections of my plein air drawings and fuse them with invention to combine gesture and pattern with memory and aspiration. I travel constantly and for the past 2 years have been working on a series of about 100 Road Tripping black and white drawings, done in the car while a passenger speeding down the road at 70 mph. I do what needs to be done--lie, cheat, invent--to create places that are both seductive and turbulent. The energy emanating from specific terrains is active and palpable and translates into a music-like rhythm (a form of synesthesia) for me, which I attempt to convey with a sense of both harmony and discord—reflective of our current existence.

There are no humans or animal life in my landscapes. These grounds shift, morph, twist into lush but vacant places. If beauty is the greatest form of protest, which in my plein air practice I have always believed, are these landscape vistas then merely depicting beauty or are these subtly threatening environments reflective of our current demise? Both coexist in my work as they do in nature, but the scales are tipping. I feel an urgency to record the natural world now more than ever—to communicate its relevance, to kindle connection between our species and our environment while it is still somewhat intact. In these devastating times, I am pursuing hope.