Angela Piehl: Paintings

Through my work, I question preconceived notions of nature and beauty and ask viewers to consider the relationship between accumulation and the feeling of alienation from nature. My approach is decoratively abstract. The bouquet-like arrangements found in my compositions function as metaphors as well as resemble creatures or forms from nature. I incorporate a hybridization of aesthetic orders: synthetic and organic, flora and fauna, and bodily and constructed forms. 

My images function as arrangements or environments that can be read in diverging ways. I layer areas within each composition to a baroque density, and the results of this process are grotesque, and somewhat lurid. The forms are monstrous, yet delicately fragile and lovely--living, yet ambiguously dormant. 

It is through beauty that the range and use of my reference material, from organic matter to opulent embellishment, that the connections between accumulation and alienation from nature are most apparent. The resulting visual ambiguity is an invitation for the viewer to decipher the source material. The viewer is asked to question preconceived notions about nature and beauty, and acknowledge the complex realizations that such questions can evoke. I invite the audience to actively look at and categorize what they see for themselves and ultimately to consider their relationship to the natural world.