Portfolio of Paintings

“Elizabeth Mowry is known primarily for her poetic imprint upon common landscape components.  Her paintings linger at the edge of closure as they guide the observer

to a place of quietude.”

~ Art Reviewer

Throughout the years, reviewers and critics were the first to consistently describe my work as “poetic.”  I realized that I was not painting nature “how it was” but rather “how I thought it could be.”  Years later, my third book about painting was published having the title Poetic Landscape and in the meantime, I had given a great deal of time to identifying what that actually meant to me personally and in the work I was doing.  Ironically, the result was that the text became as important as the images. 

Briefly, “poetic” landscape embraces the most common natural elements familiar to all people, and much of it is introspective as opposed to site-specific.  For me, it becomes a gentle reminder of the importance of tranquility by declaring the beauty or tragedy of a single idea.  Its strength emerges from what is left unexpressed because it always falls just short of closure.  So while the artist visually describes the scene, it is the viewer’s voice that completes the script with memories and yearnings that are personally meaningful.

Almost three decades ago in an Artist Statement that I had thoughtfully penned, I wrote:  “My hope is that in the future my work will stand on its own merit of excellence as a tribute to the deep communion that exists between mankind and nature and that the only words in my artistic statement will be, ‘there is no longer a statement at all’.”

I remain hopeful...