Los Angeles-based artist Sam Falls treks into the wilderness, traversing many of America’s national parks and even submerging himself underwater to create compositions on large sheets of canvas that capture the formal qualities of the local plant life. Using only colored pigment and the sun, Falls creates paintings that sublimate the nature world, recording a particular moment in time as well as the human impulse to connect with nature. In his sculpture and ceramic work Falls layers scavenged branches, twigs and leaves to create intricate patterns that constitute a vague definition of “place.”
For Laumeier Sculpture Park, Falls will create two on-site large scale paintings documenting the Park’s forest floor by using his distinctive painting techniques with dried pigments, dew drops, rain and mist. Working with Laumeier’s master gardener to grow a customized garden, Falls will use the resulting flora on two-monumental sculptures using I-beams and brightly glazed clay tiles. The two hard-edged towers will only represent a sliver of the overwhelming space and abundance of nature.