Opening reception: November 7, 6 – 8 pm

Greta Van Campen is an artist based in Maine and is known for a hard-edged graphic approach to representation. She has spent a great deal of time traveling across the United States sourcing inspiration from the landscapes, small towns, and cities throughout America. For this exhibition, Van Campen has chosen to focus on scenes and landscapes from her time spent in New Orleans and Louisiana. She starts each painting working from her own photographs and sketches, first deciding on large compositional elements and dynamic lines, then painting in layers and masking off areas and adding smaller details as she continues. This distilled and stylized approach imbues her traditional subject matter with a freshness and modernity. As Van Campen explains, she “figure(s) out how to recreate a version of the natural, atmospheric place by turning it into a more geometric, color and balance-driven scene that is hopefully appealing, interesting, and authentic.”

Van Campen received her BA in Visual Art from Bowdoin and has exhibited in both solo and group exhibitions throughout the U.S. She is the recipient of several awards and has been an Artist in Residence at the Borestone Mountain Audobon Sanctuary in Guilford, Maine and at the Wrangell Mountains Center in McCarthy, Arkansas.  Van Campen recently completed an artist residency program at Brush Creek Foundation for the Arts in Wyoming.