The Language of Bark

by Jayne Marek Issue: Fall 2016 Special Issue on Forests

Artist's Statement

I experiment with exposures to explore how perception and perspective articulate. Such landscape designs allow viewers to ponder how objective reality can be perceived in multiple ways. The ambiguities in interpreting some imagery can engage a viewer’s mindset and show the power of the abstract. Many of my photos utilize or evoke water—what can be seen beneath, above, and through this common yet mysterious medium. The fascination of water arises from its ability to change shape and color, to reveal and conceal, and to move with great power yet remain elusive to the grasp. Here, the isolation of details of birch bark scraps, afloat in a lake, create a quilt of color pleasing in itself and interesting for the natural processes it suggests.

 


Jayne Marek

Jayne Marek has received two fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities and two Pushcart Prize nominations.  Her poetry and art photos appear in publications such as Sliver of Stone, Spillway, Camas, Peacock Journal, Central American Literary Review, Flying Island, Tipton Poetry Journal, New Mexico Review, Gyroscope, Blast Furnace, and Gravel, among others. She is author of a chapbook, Imposition of Form on the Natural World (2013), and co-author of Company of Women: New and Selected Poems (2013). Her first full-length poetry book, In and Out of Rough Water, will appear late in 2016.

Fall 2016 Special Issue on Forests