A triptych of images — birds in flight, a lone road, a dead bird. The lithograph Nestled; Impermanent Places by printmaker Brian Wagner reads like a page in a diary. A pause in a solemn narrative of home and the passage of time.
Wagner has a wonderful sense of space, the empty white above hangs like heaven. The dead bird, at rest below. Each in perfect balance. The color is saved for the largest panel with the lone road rendered in a golden ochre, leading to a single home. Wagner’s impermanent places — the sky above, the space below the dirt, and the white barn-like house. There’s a rural delicateness to Wagner’s color treatment and mark making. The language too is precious. The text, close to my chest / just as well weigh down the corners.
Nestled is a seven color lithograph with a small edition of fifteen and at 24″ x 21″ is quite a large litho, and in the breadth of the print Wagner offers a reverent bow to the natural world where each of us is an equal to the birds in the sky.
‘Nestled; Impermanent Places’ by Brian Wagner
