Jackie Battenfield

In a process she likens to the environmental forces that inspire her, Jackie Battenfield makes prints and paintings of abstracted natural forms.

She is drawn to the abstraction inherent in nature: the shifting shapes of clouds and tree limbs; the smeary scrim of a rainstorm; vibrant brushfires; and rippling water. Working from her own photographs, she transforms these phenomena into compositions inspired by Japanese ukiyo-e prints and East Asian folding screens and scroll paintings. In her “Crosscurrents” series (begun 2005) of monoprints on handmade paper embedded with bamboo leaves, horsehair, and flecks of gold, Battenfield combines sweeping, calligraphic brushstrokes with delicately rendered images of leaves, beside stains hinting at goldfish.

“I pour, sweep, brush, drip, and fling layers of paint like clouds scudding across the sky. I coax pools of paint into translucent veils of color.”