“I only went out for a walk, and finally concluded to stay out till sundown, for going out, I found, was really going in.” --John Muir
Garnet’s work conveys a lifetime of sensibility toward her subject matter- the pristine and pastoral landscapes which abound in her home region, though often only in small fragments. She was raised with a sense of stewardship for the planet and an appreciation for the American landscape, a connection to the environment augmented by her readings of American Transcendentalist writers and those of her father’s great uncle, the naturalist and writer John Muir.
Painting en plein air, she remains attracted to natural settings, whether remote or merely a normally unnoticed vacant lot. While anchored in specific times and places, her work is not mere documentation, nor is it aimed specifically at expressing her reaction to a scene. Instead, it reflects a deep identification with the environment- her works speak of the feeling of a place at a certain time and do not direct the viewer to any specific emotional response. In that sense, her goal is to immerse herself in an environment and let it speak for itself - she regards her work as recording rather than translating. In that approach, her work is thus both an emotional reaction to a place and a documentation of American landscape.
Garnet has studied with Shirley Cean Youngs, Joann Ballinger, George Phillips, Marcia Phillips, and Christopher Zhang. She maintains membership with Lyme Art Association, Mystic Arts Center, Connecticut Pastel Society, Connecticut Association of Fine Artists, and the Connecticut Plein Air Painters Society, and exhibits regularly. Her work has been exhibited in juried exhibitions throughout the northeast, and hang in private collections throughout the United States and across the globe. Garnet’s work captures the transitory properties of Nature through the intimate medium of pastels. The images created are lush, unsentimental portrayals of an environment experienced rather than observed. They are valued for their sense of tranquility, exhilaration, and celebration of the natural world.
About Garnet Wrigley