All Content © 2011
Rochelle Toner
Statement

These watercolor drawings and prints, as well as the other drawings and prints that I have made over the past few years, have the collective title Nature, Pleasure, and Innuendo. In my work I am fascinated by the way abstraction evolves from a process of observing, distilling, and internalizing information in a synthesis of conscious and sub-conscious interactions. My work explores the juncture between abstraction and representation, the point at which the referent may be felt in the work without the intrusion of the literal.

Through a process of drawing and discovery I look for shapes, forms, and images which have the suggestive powers of mystery and illusion. When I arrive at an image which I believe has these qualities, I am interested in rendering it with a strength and clarity which will make the forms believable and tactile. I am fascinated by how these abstracted botanical and physiological references can metaphorically evoke human nature and human interaction. Natura sola magistra, "Nature is the only teacher," was the motto of Joris Hoefnagel who worked as an artist and illustrator in the Sixteenth Century.