ARTIST STATEMENT
This work explores migration through layered fields of color and fragmented markings that suggest pathways, crossings, and shifting terrain. Forms gather and disperse, reflecting both disruption and resilience. Composed from overlapping geographies and histories, the image holds traces of movement and memory—what is carried forward and what remains. Rooted in a history of diaspora, the work speaks to a broader human experience: the ways we carry place within us, and how identity is shaped across distance and time.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
I am a Chicago-based painter and printmaker whose work explores the relationship between place, memory, and identity. My paintings often begin outdoors—through plein air observation or quick sketchbook studies—and evolve in the studio into layered images shaped by emotion, recollection, and inherited stories.
Whether I am painting forests, rivers, and shifting light, or creating work rooted in Jewish history, ritual, and cultural memory, I approach each piece as a landscape—physical, spiritual, or symbolic. These two bodies of work are deeply connected, reflecting my lifelong interest in how we inhabit the world around us and the inner landscapes we carry.
Across oil, watercolor, and monotype, I build images that weave observation with abstraction, nature with culture, and lived experience with imagination. My work invites viewers to recognize their own connections to place, belonging, and the stories embedded in the land.
© Carol Neiger