Arden Bendler Browning

 

Travel, both far and near, is a driving factor in my life and my artistic practice. The desire to escape is encouraged by stock scenic digital imagery every time we open our computers and the ability to endlessly capture idealized views in any direction. I carry papers, paints, pencils and crayons wherever I go, and sketch on site during walks, rests, and commutes. I bring back my sketches and photographs to my Philadelphia studio for deeper meditative reflection as memories recede. 

The drawings made on site carry a weight from the physical time spent in that specific place. My 2024 works are the results of sketches I made during hikes through Germany’s Black Forest while visiting the ancestral homes of my Holocaust survivor grandparents. These drawings serve as foundations for further interventions through collage, paint and virtual reality. The 2023 works began with sketches I created on site while at a residency in Newfoundland, Canada and virtual street view travel of planned trips to South America. Covering up portions of the sketches with disposable and discarded remnants questions the unseen aspects that make travel possible.

In addition to collage, my work often utilizes walkable digital space and embedded video screens in order to “see behind” the painted surface and explore metaphysical and psychological perceptions of place. These land(e)scapes merge the distinction between real and digital marks, as I navigate moving through a heavily digitized world.