When viewing Nicole Michaud’s abstract landscape paintings, one may see fields, marshes, or harbors, where some see cities and deserts. Each piece is created from memory and imagination, evoking a sense of nostalgia in the viewer as they draw from their own recollections and emotions to create the story behind the colors and strokes.
This series of oil pastels on paper are smaller in size, empowering the artist to investigate new dimensions. This grants her the opportunity to build on multiple pieces at once by revisiting each painting various times to rework it. The smallest size was created to resemble old polaroid pictures, a moment or memory captured in time.
“The creation of my work is personal and a reflection of where I am emotionally at the time,” Michaud explains.
“My artistic process sometimes begins with sketches of actual landscapes, but the majority of these works are pure inventions. Most often, the landscape is accidental; these works begin as color and become landscapes over time. The images emerge from memory and are altered by things that I am thinking about while I work, such as shadows, dreams, the objects around me, and my environment,” Michaud continues.
“Oil pastels have great color density, and since they do not dry, they allow me to repeatedly return to and rework a piece, sometimes scraping the entire surface away to reveal only the ghost of the image. As I work, I cover, blend, scrape, and scratch, and through a process of constant revision, my work emerges into a final image.”
View more works by Nicole Michaud.
