Camille Kouyoumdjian

Lives and works in Southwest Harbor, ME

Artist statement

My paintings explore how a landscape can remain recognizable as its forms break apart. Drawing on coastal terrain, I work between the weight of rock and the instability of water, weather, and light. These elements become a vocabulary of interlocking planes, worn edges, suspended fragments, and open space. I work with acrylic, collage, oil, and cold wax, using the different qualities of these materials to bring structure and atmosphere into contact. Opaque passages interrupt translucent fields; distinct edges give way to less certain boundaries. The surface holds these competing conditions together, allowing a shape to read as stone, a fragment of material, or an abstract form. I am interested in the point where the construction of a painting becomes inseparable from the landscape it suggests. A pale passage can function as light or as an interruption. A dark form can anchor the composition while appearing to drift. These shifts keep the image unsettled and make looking an active process of assembling and reconsidering relationships. Across the work, landscape emerges through memory and perception. The paintings offer an encounter with places that feel substantial yet remain subject to change—where solidity and erosion, order and chance, continually reshape one another.

Artwork