My plein air paintings tend toward an ecstatic moment when information dissolves in sentiment and the sensorium is pictured as a head / heart interface. The mind contributes relics of structure from the actual scene; the intuitive, painterly understanding resolves it with an eye to beauty. This idea of beauty is never absolute but always refers back to inherent potentials of the scene.

Mystical experience, as understood by the Eastern school, dissolves all categories and favors oneness or immersion in moment-to-moment experience. The observer passes into the observed scene and reconstitutes it as an experience of the Self. So these paintings are also self-portraits. They are representations of how I came to know myself at a given place and time.

Josette Urso
December 2008