Translating photographic images into paintings, I offer the viewer an opportunity to focus on the human condition and how alike we all are. Amidst the saturation of images on any subject, I zero in on the ones that convey, at a glance, a depth of emotion.
I am drawn to sources that range from public media to private snapshots. I choose the images I can’t stop thinking about. At first I stick close to the source photo, but as I work, some things are omitted and others are added. As I invent my own version of the details, each painting takes on a life and logic of its own. The final product is often very different from its inspiration. What it does convey is the feeling the photo evoked in me when I first encountered it.
Winner of the Sanchez Art Center’s Left Coast Annual Award, Traeger presented her work in a solo exhibition in Aril 2014. Her work has also been featured recently in Smith Anderson Editions’ Gender Specific show, and in Artik: Art and Architecture’s 20th Anniversary Exhibition.