My work is inspired by nature’s delicate balance of chaos and order; the haphazard and wild, bisecting the deliberate and harmonious. The paintings emote an unspecificity of time and place and invite viewers into the future - or the past - or perhaps it’s a dream. Inspired by natural phenomena and light functioning as both illusion and tactile, the works toggle between representational and abstract, with brushwork and pigments serving as both material and light. Experimentation with mark making and an intuitive approach recuses the paint from a purely descriptive function, offering the viewer an invitation to wander, linger, and discover.

Anchored among a deep history of landscape painters in Maine, I paint (often en plein air), amid the backdrop of a climate crisis. While the subject matter is visually devoid of human artifacts, the paintings present moments of the natural world dematerializing and regenerating, serving as a reminder of the potential power - and danger - of human influence on the environment. I hope my work encourages people to question one’s own physical and figurative position in our world and how that shapes what we see and feel – and what we don’t.

Louisa Sagendorph Donelson (born Massachusetts, 1983) is an artist living in Portland, Maine. Her practice is influenced by the order and chaos of the natural world, vast dream-like states, moving meditation, and the climate crisis. She holds a BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design.