Initially I developed an interest in the western Landscapes of Thomas Moran and Bierstadt. Many of their paintings supported the idea of the untamed, empty western landscape. The frontier ties into the concept of the cowboy, which relates to our current ideals of masculinity. This conceptual interest in landscapes expanded into a formal interest in a range of landscape artists—which brought me to the works of Gainsborough and Poussin, among others.

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