The Art Out There: Nora Sturges

Nora Sturges paints narrative landscapes in several evocative series. Her most recent work depicts a night fallen world of arctic ruin, where the vestiges of a human presence seem to lie vacant and forlorn upon the ice. In some cases one wonders which is the more recent arrival, the people or the ice? They convey a haunting sense of the precariousness of life on the edges of habitability.

An earlier series called "Marco Polo's Travels" derives it's imagery from Italo Calvino's novel "Invisible Cities" in which a fictional Marco Polo describes the places he has traveled to Kubla Khan. In it she evokes medieval and Persian painting which was used to tell narratives to a largely illiterate populace. She crosses this approach with more modern ideas of tourism, exoticism and xenophobia.

In all her work a delicate and slightly primitive approach helps to create scenes that combine both the exotic and the mundane in a way that not only engages the imagination but demands imaginative participation from the viewer.
There are also two other series on her website and many more paintings in each:
pages.towson.edu/nsturges

Recent Work: