Jesse Gengenbach

My art is driven by the desire to uncover mysteries of time and space by examining the picturesque, particularly in relation to mythmaking. Through drawing I am attempting to trace the unknowable boundaries between the inherent character of the land, and my own projected fears and desires. This exploration began with long aimless road trips to the American West, a place saturated with prior depictions. I painted the landscape, borrowing clichés from movies, country music, history class, visitor's centers, and advertisements. I created narratives in which characters yearn for freedom to the point of destruction in an attempt to tell the story of my hope for a place wild enough to transcend morality. Grounding this dialogue is the indifferent land itself, changing on a geologic time scale, withstanding the seasons and outlasting the human dramas that play out on top of it. Sometimes the landscape is the interior of the home and mind. The wall becomes a surface upon which dreams and nightmares are projected like adventures only seen in movies. A tabletop becomes a landscape, and pictures on a wall becomes conscious of their framing. Memories are transmuted, as electricity becomes sound, or some nameless else.