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Emma Webster: Arcadia

Past exhibition
February 9 - March 23, 2019
  • Overview
  • Works
  • Installation Views
  • Press
Overview
Emma Webster: Arcadia

Diane Rosenstein Gallery is happy to announce Arcadia, a solo exhibition of new paintings by British-American artist, Emma Webster.  The artist will present fifteen oil paintings completed during a recent residency at the Anderson Ranch Arts Center in Aspen.  For her first solo show with the gallery, Webster transforms idyllic landscapes into theatrical still lifes.

 
Emma Webster first constructs intricate dioramas of collaged samples from historic paintings (from Bosch to Bierstadt). These maquettes evoke set design with backdrops staged and lit for each work. Scale shifts conflate the panoramic with the miniature, and the dioramas are a pastiche of idylls.  In these operatic and thrilling paintings, nature is fraught with artifice.  The animals are clay figurines. The foliage is plastic. Lighting comes from a flashlight. The entire view is straightforward, giving a clear vantage point. The artist’s hand is evident, fabricating an idealized scene that speaks to her desire to build one’s own world: an Arcadia.

 

The show’s title Arcadia alludes to recycled and reassembled notions of nature and art passed down from antiquity. These fake bucolics, where each tree is as much a reflection of its maker’s hands as it is a symbol, point to the ways humanity manipulates nature, seeing nature only as it relates to mankind itself. As in garden design, man contrives his own aesthetic of “natural” beauty despite the existence of another untamed and unpredictable reality. Considering climate change and deforestation, Emma Webster’s landscape as still life rings a warning.

Works
  • Emma Webster Actaeon, 2018 Oil on canvas
    Emma Webster
    Actaeon, 2018
    Oil on canvas
  • Emma Webster An Aside, 2018 Oil on canvas
    Emma Webster
    An Aside, 2018
    Oil on canvas
  • Emma Webster Anthropocene, 2018 Oil on canvas
    Emma Webster
    Anthropocene, 2018
    Oil on canvas
  • Emma Webster Bucolic, 2018 Oil on canvas
    Emma Webster
    Bucolic, 2018
    Oil on canvas
  • Emma Webster Fontaine, 2018 Oil on canvas
    Emma Webster
    Fontaine, 2018
    Oil on canvas
  • Emma Webster Forest Vigil, 2018 Oil on canvas
    Emma Webster
    Forest Vigil, 2018
    Oil on canvas
  • Emma Webster Pas de Deux, 2018 Oil on canvas
    Emma Webster
    Pas de Deux, 2018
    Oil on canvas
  • Emma Webster Rites of Winter, 2018 Oil on Canvas
    Emma Webster
    Rites of Winter, 2018
    Oil on Canvas
Installation Views
  • Emma Webster Arcadia Diane Rosenstein Gallery Installation View 01
  • Emma Webster Arcadia Diane Rosenstein Gallery Installation View 05
  • Emma Webster Arcadia Diane Rosenstein Gallery Installation View 22
  • Emma Webster Arcadia Diane Rosenstein Gallery Installation View 11
  • Emma Webster Arcadia Diane Rosenstein Gallery Installation View 09
  • Emma Webster Arcadia Diane Rosenstein Gallery Installation View 12
Press
  • Emma Webster, Park Service, 2018

    Art and Cake: Emma Webster: Arcadia

    Jody Zellen, March 23, 2019
  • Emma Webster, No Man’s Land, 2018

    Artillery Magazine: Emma Webster

    Cooper Johnson, March 11, 2019
  • Emma Webster, Et in Arcadia ego, 2018

    AEQAI: Emma Webster: Arcadia

    Annabel Osberg, March 3, 2019
  • Emma Webster, Forest Vigil, 2018

    ARTFORUM Critic's Pick: Emma Webster: Arcadia

    Tyler Malone, March 2, 2019
  • Emma Webster, Bucolic, 2018

    Los Angeles Times Review: Emma Webster’s landscapes take you into a sublime, magical world

    David Pagel, February 23, 2019
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