Annie Butrus’ painting are contemplative studies that evoke the relationship between time and nature. She is intimately aware of the transient quality of our shared natural landscapes, and her work reflects the precious, vital forms of nature that both incorporate and resist the hand of humans in its development. Her careful renderings show her reverence for Nature and its stamina in the face of encroaching commercial and residential development. In the tradition of the Impressionist , she begins her paintings en plein air, tracing and retracing shadows of trees, leaves, fruit, and branches on handmade birch panels as the sun moves along its course overhead. In the studio she uses resist and acrylic glazes to reveal a play between negative voids representing disappearing landscape and painted areas that record the perseverance of natural forms. Color is used to both evoke the seasons and involve the viewer emotionally in the scene. Some traditional characteristics of landscape paintings, such as trees, are intentionally incorporated, while others, such as horizon lines, are deliberately excluded, obscuring the placement of the viewer and relating to Japanese Ukiyo-e “floating world” pictures. The effect is stunning and evocative abstraction of elemental forms that encourages the viewer to contemplate the fleeting shadows of the natural world in our own life.
Painting on canvas, colors include chartreuse, white, cream and sage green.