UPSIDE DOWN WORLD

NEW PAINTINGS

Exhibition at Craig Krull Gallery
October 21 – November 25, 2017

For me, Astrid Preston’s work is always about the philosophy of perception, particularly with regard to beauty and nature. Is not beauty an abstract human concept that exists purely in our minds? Are we able to distinguish between the object and the sensation? Does our ability to think abstractly, an ability that we believe elevates us above animals, actually distance us from nature? Certainly landscapes do not exist in nature either, they are artificial and exclusive outlines. In fact, the pixels in Preston’s new work exemplify this by deconstructing beauty as an idea, and formally building a landscape. It is the persistence of these conundrums, and their exploration by the artist, that constitute the beauty of Astrid Preston’s art. 

by Craig Krull

Color of Colors, 2017, oil on canvas, 42 x 66 inches

"What we observe is not nature in itself, 

but nature exposed to our method of questioning."

- Werner Heisenberg 

Greens, 2017, oil on canvas, 16 x 16 inches	Hilltop, 2016, oil on wood panel, 16 x 16 inches

"There is no more to beauty

than pleasure miscast as an objective property 

of what happens to give us pleasure."

- Walter Benjamin 

Autumun Songs, 2016, oil on canvas, 42 x 66 inches

"If Beauty does not exist in nature 

Why is nature so Beautiful?"

- CK 

Hearing the Leaves, 2016 oil on canvas, 60 x 42 inches	Upside Down World, 2017, oil on canvas, 84 x 60 inche	Veiled, 2017 oil on canvas, 36 x 24 inches