Sjovold's artist statement:
“Place”, and how I construct it, grows more central to my paintings. Even when I paint odd narratives, place becomes an actor. Place is both exterior and interior, as topography and memory, physical and virtual, lost and found, and I carry the whole mess around like my paints. Whether it is because I have moved a lot in my life or because I am responding to the “here” is “elsewhere/everywhere” character of living remains a question for the paintings to sort out.
Specifically I think about displacement and the unifying properties of light/color. And, I think about Heraclitus’ quote, “No man steps in the same river twice, for it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man”. The paradoxes of situation and identity I enjoy exploring through paint.
My paintings begin collage-like by piecing together various spaces. Passages include those from direct observation (plein air), from memory, abstract invention, and photography. The role that light/color plays is in how the seams of this puzzle are fused or left exposed. As the paintings evolve my concerns shift from an obvious cut-and-paste aesthetic towards one of attempted or partial unity. I say “attempted” or “partial” unity because desire is a subject of these paintings, my desire for staying connected within the given contingencies and mediations of living.
Backpacking has yielded to lawn mowing. Wonder remains. The raw beauty and chaos that I associate with the Western landscapes of my youth are masked by the refined spaces of my paintings and their suburban sensibility. Very much like my experiences of natural history dioramas and their staged dramas, my paintings similarly ride the edge between affirmation and loss, sympathy and alienation, fact and fiction, living and dead, revival and absurdity. Still, I am entranced every day by the elemental rising and setting of the sun.
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