We have been shaped by our environment for millennia. Likewise we shape our environment in return. Since the first pit was dug to trap a mastodon, we have been clearing fields, erecting walls, building dams, adopting or exterminating entire species. Now we are shaping the earth itself.

In the context of this era of breathtaking change, I am compelled to explore the relationship between humans and our environment in my artwork.

Sometimes that relationship is benign and sheltering, sometimes it is one-sided or antagonistic. Often it is ambiguous. I am interested in how our architectural spaces reflect us. I am even more interested in the tension between the built and the grown, the manmade and the natural. That is why my landscapes display confusion between a bucolic natural scene and the other side of the gallery wall; and why my sculptural houses grow legs.

I work in a variety of media, primarily oil paint and wood. I think drawing a distinction between painting and sculpture is not always useful.

Tamara Stephas
2010