Curatorial Statement

In her quietly radical practice, Svoboda engages land and water not as subjects to be represented, but as collaborators in the act of making. Her plein air paintings—created using water from the Great Lakes, the Mississippi River, and their surrounding watersheds—invite elemental forces into the studio. Wind, rain, and sediment interact with water-soluble pigments, sand, salt, and plant matter to shape each piece. The resulting works are not simply depictions of landscape—they are direct imprints of it. As natural processes leave their mark, the paintings become atmospheric records of place, time, and ecological memory. Rooted in methods of automatism reminiscent of the Dadaists and Surrealists, Svoboda relinquishes full control, allowing nature to co-author the image. These works resist traditional notions of mastery over the land, instead presenting a dynamic relationship of exchange. They bear the quiet authority of the land’s own language—fluid, unpredictable, and textured by the presence of what cannot be fully seen.

Here, repetition becomes ritual. The ephemeral quality of the torn paper—delicate, impermanent—recalls both Buddhist sand mandalas and the slow decay of natural matter. There is tension between intricacy and transience, beauty and fragility. The viewer is invited not to decode a narrative, but to linger in a space of intuitive resonance, where rhythm and form mirror the larger cycles of growth, erosion, and return. Across both bodies of work, Svoboda navigates the fertile edge between destruction and renewal. Her process reveals how land and water remember, absorb, and transform—much like the materials she employs. This exhibition asks: how do we bear witness to the landscapes we’ve altered? What does it mean to make art with a place rather than about it? In a time of ecological rupture, Svoboda’s work offers a contemplative counterpoint. She resists spectacle in favor of attention, inviting viewers to slow down, to attune, and to consider the quiet reciprocity between environments and the people who move through them. These works become spaces for reflection: visual meditations on loss, resilience, and the interconnected forces—human and nonhuman—that shape our shared world

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Photo credit: Tom Vaneynde