"My artistic practice is born from a deeply seated respect and reverence for the wild, commencing with direct immersion in its untamed landscapes. The wellspring of my art stirs not in a studio, but out in the raw elements, where my camera becomes an extension of breath and blood, drawing forth inspiration from the land's pulse. It is here, through witnessing and absorbing Mother Nature's grandeur, chasing the exquisite dance of light and shadow, and anticipating the shifting moods of weather, that the impulse to create truly begins.
My photographs and films are a vital extension of this immediate connection. My camera allows me to capture and preserve moments frozen in time within my photographs, while my films bring these experiences to life, telling stories of wild places and the indelible marks they leave on us. These visual narratives are testaments to my dedication not only to create art about the wild, but to genuinely experience its soul firsthand.
This intimate understanding of the landscape fuels my other creative endeavors. In my painting practice, I delve into the untamed American West. Through mixed media, I endeavor to capture the profound solitude and raw majesty of our mountains, rivers, and deserts—environments that resonate with enduring power and subtle fragility. Each canvas enters a personal dialogue with these vast spaces, rendering their unique topographies and atmospheric nuances with an intimate focus. This visual vocabulary draws deeply from my study of ancient rock art, a timeless tradition where the very essence of a landscape was distilled into its most potent, symbolic forms. My aim is to evoke not a specific place, but the universal archetype of the wild—a mountain, mesa or a river rendered in its elemental truth, deeply understood and profoundly relatable to all who encounter it.
The physical manifestation of my art also carries this profound narrative. My sculptures begin with the personal harvest and meticulous processing of local beetle-kill spruce, pine, and fir. These trees, standing as poignant sentinels in our Colorado forests, are a direct consequence of warming winters and the accelerating currents of climate change—a testament to nature's vulnerability and remarkable resilience. Within each live-edge wood slab, the inherent language of the wood—its unique grain, its knots, its very history—unfurls to reveal a latent topographical landscape. It is within these organic contours that a singular river finds its destiny, carved not merely onto the surface, but seemingly unearthed from within the wood's own narrative. Each river, distinct in its meandering path, becomes a unique geographical and temporal fingerprint.
This unwavering dedication to material and theme permeates my entire artistic output. Every painted canvas and every captured photograph is presented within a handmade frame crafted from these same beetle-kill trees. Imbued with their environmental story, these frames serve as a tangible and poignant connection to the very landscapes depicted and embodied within my work. This cohesive approach ensures that the essence of these affected forests, their natural beauty, and the urgent ecological dialogue they represent, is carried through every creation. My art seeks to elevate a local ecological phenomenon into a universal artistic statement, offering a voice to the wild and inviting viewers into a deeper reflection on our interwoven existence with the natural world—an endeavor, ultimately, to find enduring beauty and profound meaning even amidst transformation."
-Colt Maule
