Jarid del Deo 5/8ths Moon, 2023oil on panel15 x 12 framedNFS - from the Collection of Tessa Green O'Brien and Will Sears “As my approach to landscape painting evolves, I am less concerned with a one-to-one visual documentation of my environment. I am still working from my observed surroundings but I am more interested in painting the felt experience of being in a place. My responsibility towards composition, shape, color, and value is inescapable, but I am more comfortable exchanging what I consider visual accuracy for something that is more spiritually expressive. I do have a viewer in mind when I paint and want to make work that is believable and relatable. A painting could be considered successful if it causes the viewer to reflect on their own relationship to the environment. I attempt to facilitate this by describing the atmosphere and heightened specialness of a place. I will often use a dramatic light source, compositional framing, or layered space to lead the viewer into the painting. I paint in oil, usually on panel, and I will work on a painting over a few weeks (or more) making changes until I feel like it carries the same level of interest as the real life subject. I typically have several paintings in various states of completion going at once and I like carrying ideas across different panels. I don’t consider groups of work a series but they will often have a shared palette, similar mark making or varied approaches to the same subject.”
