Below: stages of the painting process for the Condensation series

My recent work is a series of oil paintings that focus on the Lowcountry landscape, shrouded in condensation. I create plein air and photograph-based studies of a landscape, and then I cover them with a condensation layer in my studio, using airbrush, masking and water resist to create a foggy effect. This synthetic approach allows me to craft an imaginary window over any landscape. I see condensation as a visible boundary between humans and nature. With finger-drawn text embedded into it, this boundary becomes a canvas to express desires and anxieties for the landscape underneath.  

I grew up in Murmansk, a city with a humid Arctic climate and dense population. Windows on public transport and in stairwells were coated in condensation and hoarfrost most of the year, and with the latter, whatever you doodled stayed for days. I’ve always enjoyed this form of graffiti, harmless but still a public forum for expression. 

Coastal communities like the Lowcountry, where I live now, are the first witnesses and victims of the effects of anthropogenic climate change. Foggy windows were the first herald of this inevitable change for me. With paintings I make these windows into something I had always known them as: a space for expression.