He admires the genre of landscape’s ability to provide a vehicle for perspective, metaphor, symbolism, and our humanity. Working with a rotating cast of characters in his painting, he is committed to the fluidity of amorphous and shifting subjects that float in and out of his landscapes. The disembodied flute, trickster orbs, following eyes and moons, all punctuate otherworldly and alien terrains. Clouds, mist, rolling hills and mountains, all suggest an expansive, swirling weather condition that envelopes and comforts rather than exerting an impending disaster.
Prazniak works tends to work at a familiar, small scale for the sake of remaining lovely and local, and to resist larger power structures. With a thick building up of gesso to create a subtle beveled edge of each work, his paintings take on the role of object, presenting themselves as ambiguous works with pastel-hued images on the surface and stopping just short of the canvas edge.
In the artist’s words:
A painter is a seeker, always accepting any help along the way. The themes of Wandering and Guidance have been central to my recent work as I’ve been more attuned to weirder, fleeting ideas. The new elements need to establish structure, perform mysteriously, and move the narrative to the next painting. The horizon represents what’s ahead of us in life, and it can be really peaceful if we accept that we aren’t in control of everything. I think that’s a metaphor for paint.