In ‘Into the Mist’ I offer glimpses of respite amidst the vague unknowing in the time of COVID. I ventured to the mountains of North Carolina as summer ended in 2020 to find a reprieve in shinrin-yoku as the Japanese call forest bathing – seeking serenity and balance as practiced by a multitude of cultures for thousands of years.
A quiet pilgrimage among the trees revealed the beloved fog that comforted me as a child growing up in the South. Embraced in a vapor evocative of the melancholy light of dusk, it was as though the clouds sighed an amorphous, dewy veil over the lush woods. I felt outside of time as we drove along the winding road, photographing through the windows and myriad layers of love and loss. Moving and still – it was a blink in the continuum of history, in a period like no other in our lifetime.
Cloistered in my studio upon my return to Denver, I was transfixed in transforming these fragments of time. Informed by my background in painting and art history, the images were layered digitally with a limited palette of color and texture, delicately enhancing the muted verdant views to evoke the mystery and wonder that permeated my senses.
The images were printed with archival pigment inks on Japanese kozo paper – made from the inner bark of mulberry trees. White gold leaf was then applied on the verso, infusing the artist’s hand and suffusing the images with the implied spirituality of the precious metal. The filtered, dappled light that glimmered through the branches is echoed in the shimmer of the gilded prints. With this meditative process, I explore what I feel as much as see. I follow intuitively where each image takes me, honoring the variations within the edition to elevate the ephemeral. Senses enveloped, I am immersed in a state of grace.
Into the Mist I © Wendi Schneider
Into the Mist II © Wendi Schneider
Into the Mist III © Wendi Schneider
Into the Mist IV © Wendi Schneider
Into the Mist V © Wendi Schneider
Into the Mist VI © Wendi Schneider
Wendi Schneider is an American artist based in Denver, CO, widely known for her ongoing series of hand gilded photographs – States of Grace. Drawn to the serenity and transcendence she finds in the sinuous elegance of organic forms, she creates illuminated impressions of vanishing beauty in our vulnerable natural world. Layering color, texture, and gold leaf, Schneider creates ephemeral illusions that seemingly dance on the paper’s surface amidst reflections of light on precious metals - a synthesis of technique and subject culminating in unique objects of reverence. Her work is influenced by a background in painting and art history, and her collection of turn-of-the-twentieth-century art and objects.
Schneider’s photographs are held in the permanent collections of The New Orleans Museum of Art, The Center for Creative Photography, The Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, The Auburn University Library Special Collections, and The Try-Me Collection, as well as numerous private collections. Schneider is represented by A Gallery for Fine Photography (New Orleans), Arnika Dawkins Gallery (Atlanta), Catherine Couturier Gallery (Houston), Etherton Gallery (Tucson), PhotoGraphic Gallery (San Miguel de Allende), Rick Wester Fine Art (New York), and Vision Gallery (Jerusalem).
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@wendischneiderart
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Into the Mist VII © Wendi Schneider
Into the Mist VIII © Wendi Schneider
Into the Mist IX © Wendi Schneider
Into the Mist X © Wendi Schneider
Into the Mist XII © Wendi Schneider
Into the Mist XIV © Wendi Schneider
