KieferArt
"Eminent Domain" Oil on canvas, 11" x 48" $350 (US customers only) SOLD I had been looking for a local site to set up my easel. The countryside near my home has a quiet beauty, no spectacular views of anything. Central Minnesota is mostly flat and used to be heavily forested before the logging era of the early to mid-20th century. The cleared land was converted into endless miles of farmland. There is a vacant farmhouse with a single, massive evergreen tree about three miles from where I live. On a blazing hot day a few years ago on my way up to Ogilvie, I passed this property and saw that dozens of cows had taken over the grounds, up to and including the front porch of the house. The black cows, more suseptible to absorbing heat than the lighter-colored cows, had massed under the only shade there was near the road. The brown and white ones were either just hanging out or following each other to where the grass was, well, greener. I wish I could've set up right there and then, but the road curves sharply in front of that place and I didn't want to become roadkill, so I reluctantly took reference photos instead. It's just as well. I would've boiled in that relentless sun anyway. The subject of "eminent domain" had been front and center in the news. I don't quite recall the context of it all, but it had been on my mind. The abandon with which these docile creatures had usurped this land, coupled with the vacant house (once the home of their "master"), dictated the significance of the scene for me. (I had noticed how quickly the indiginous plants on my property could reclaim their natural state if I slacked in trying to bend it my way.) "Reclamation" might have been an appropriate title for this, but the term "eminent" seemed more fitting. | ||
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