Laini Nemett

Lives and works in Schenectady, NY, USA

Artist statement

My work focuses on the architecture of natural and built environments. In some projects I collage forms to fuse times and places in scenes that are believable, yet impossible. In others, I more objectively record the effects of time and climate change, whether an ancient cliff dwelling in the American Southwest or the view out my window in upstate New York. Spending more time than usual at home the past few years, my paintings began to sway between epic natural landforms and the more quotidian world just outside my window. In the latter, I track the changes of hours, seasons, and routines through direct plein-air paintings of my neighborhood. Trees shed their leaves, triple in size with snow, break in wind storms, drop new saplings, and reshape the land. Through representational oil paintings I respond to the landscape’s small and large metamorphoses, and my own place within it.

Artwork