ARTIST STATEMENT:

Sage Tucker-Ketcham (b. 1978, Randolph, VT), a 14 generation Vermont native builds lush scenes of foliage through layered paintings of her environment. Long daily meditative walks inform the canvas as weeds and native plants emerge flourishing from memory. Often disregarded, yet growing where no one would expect, blooms of daisies, black-eyed Susans and grasses thrive on the canvas, as their bold, saturated hues, plume and expand. The vibrant biosphere Tucker-Ketcham depicts hyperphantasia-like abilities, sheds expectations of natural color and builds a thickly infused ambiance, even allowing the atmosphere to mingle with these plants and to become an amplified character.

Constructed by a slow process of overlaying thin applications of oil paint, glazes and sprays, the canvas conveys ethereal tension within unique, surreal ecosystems. Informed by self-expressionist and impressionistic foundations, Tucker-Ketcham conceptually addresses points where hyper-personal subjective moments intersect with a collective objective shared experience. Invoking medicinal value in seeing, like the phenomena of ‘soft-fascination’, this painter considers the environment as a visual medicine; the plants heal as they navigate their growth and are resilient in ways that are abstract. Plants become depleted, sometimes almost dying in order to grow bigger and stronger. Here, Tucker-Ketcham’s resolute eye-catching oil paintings become a purposeful question of time, nature’s cycles and the journey of discovering a human’s place amongst the landscape. 

BIOGRAPHY:

With over 20 years’ experience as a working artist, Sage Tucker-Ketcham’s art is collected nationwide and internationally. Tucker-Ketcham received a Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) in Painting from Maine College of Art & Design and a Master of Fine Arts (MFA) from Massachusetts College of Art and Design.

Sage Tucker-Ketcham's has exhibited at Burlington City Arts, Burlington VT; Provincetown Association and Art Museum and the Fine Arts Work Center Provincetown; Institute of Contemporary Art, Portland ME; Shelburne Museum, Shelburne VT; Greenwich Library, Greenwich, CT; and Flynn Center for the Arts, Burlington, VT.

Tucker-Ketcham’s work has been widely exhibited in galleries in, Burlington, VT; Boston, MA; Dallas and Fort Worth, TX; Greenwich, CT; Martha’s Vineyard, Provincetown, Boston and Pittsfield, MA; Portland, ME; and Sarasota, FL.

Tucker-Ketcham’s works have appeared in the Boston Globe, The New York Times, Art New England Art Scope, Seven Days, the Provincetown Banner, Hemisphere Magazine, Burlington Free Press, Greenwich Times, TimeOut, NerdWallet among others.

Her pieces are part of international private collections in the United States, Switzerland, Germany, United Kingdom, and Canada. Her works are in corporate collections including Northfield Savings Bank, Vermont Community Foundation, National Life Group, The Hinds Loft, Delta Airlines, Roundstone International among others.