Valley of Fire: Walking With Anselm

This painting is now on view at Brenda TuxfordGallery in the exhibition "Backcountry Metaverse." The exhibition is open Thursdays and Fridays through August and September, 12-5 p.m., at 422 First Street in Eureka.

Emily Silver is a land artist. Raised in Colorado in a family of geologists and artists, Silver received an MFA from San Francisco Art Institute in 2007 and a BA from Stanford University in 1973. Her work has been included in solo shows including in Mojave National Preserve, Piante Gallery, McKinley Arts & Culture Center, The Springs Preserve, The Painting Center, Morris Graves Museum of Art, and Nevada State Library and Archives.

"My paintings are composed of flows and aggregates of watercolor, pigments, salts, and sediments laid over cartographic skeletons," Silver writes. "They embody an effort to identify and map the emotional and poetic qualities of place ... Geometric elements such as grids, linear horizons, the measured rhythm of footfalls, or Islamic patterns serve as foils for the organic aspects of land and represent human presence. I work closely with intuitive as well as printed or digital maps, and, lately, with satellite photos. A painting evolves during a sequential process of unfolding revelations and recognition. I’m forever amazed by the physical ability of sediment suspended in water to describe place, using the same elemental forces that sculpt land."

Brenda Tuxford Gallery is a core project of Ink People Center for the Arts.