An Atlanta native, Tracey Lane had her first solo exhibition in Atlanta in 2001. Since that time, she has shown in numerous solo and group exhibitions and has been represented by galleries in New York City, Boston, Chicago, Houston, and Santa Fe. Lane’s paintings have been featured in multiple publications, including American Art Collector and SouthwestArt Magazine, and her work is in collections all over the world. She is a fellow of The Hambidge Center for the Creative Arts & Sciences and received her master’s degree in art history from Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia in 1997. Artist StatementNature is a celebration of the mystery, promise, and complexity of life. That is what I seek to capture in my work. I am interested in the experience of light and shadow, color and texture, the play between the seen and the unseen, between memory and imagination. As with all things in nature, there is a moment that says everything: the rapidly changing quality of light and shade in a forest, reflections moving in water, the hummingbird that suddenly appears, pauses, and then disappears, butterflies fluttering through the atmosphere. My paintings are about these ephemeral moments.My love of nature was first formed over many childhood summers spent on Jekyll Island, Georgia, where Live Oaks drip Spanish moss, and marsh meets ocean. Later, walks in my family’s fourteen-acre forest in Tucker, Georgia taught me to appreciate pines and the understory.I work on wood panels and begin by building up layers of acrylic paint, ink, spray paint, and collage. I like to combine heavy, thickly applied paint with watery washes that drip randomly. As I add layers, I scratch and scrape through in places to reveal some of the original layers. I continue adding and taking away until I’m satisfied with the surface. At some point in the process, forms emerge, and I can see a forest, a bird, a river, a figure. While my process is more intuitive, I am aware of how the images I choose reflect a personal history and become a metaphor for our increasing disconnection from the natural world.