"I've been painting the landscape and urban landscape for over forty years now, and I continue to find challenge and comfort, aesthetic instruction and enjoyment, and an articulate and sophisticated philosophy expressed by the harmonious integrity of form in nature. I'm not an aesthete, and have no desire to impose my artistic will on the natural world. Rather, I am a humble observer and servant, always open to suggestion and chance, always open to love.

"These paintings are not intended to be didactic, expository nor agit-prop. They are celebratory and conversational, simple remarks about simple truths – truths that are themselves, in a word, remarkable. It is my belief that if I approach my subject with honesty and open eyes the politics of the contemporary landscape will still be evident, and that by aesthetic contemplation, by force of hard looking and considered representation, we will learn to value what is within our view apart from its obvious utility. Aesthetics has its own utilitarian purpose, a purpose that does not necessarily exist apart from the world of commerce and survival. It encloses and enhances such areas of human intention, deriving its power precisely from the fact that it stands in oblique relation to them.

"I work primarily in oil because I find it to be the most versatile medium for my expressive needs. Oils are transparent and opaque, wispy thin and scabrously thick, bright, dull, full of elegant finesse yet crudely workmanlike. In fact these tin tubes contain the whole world, and the paintings made from the pigments within hover uneasily between the physical and the metaphorical by their very nature. A painting's attractive surface texture and its facture engage our appreciation as much as the external realities that the painting represents. It is the artist's task to reconcile these two realms, the physical and the spiritual, in such a way that we are not aware of their precarious duality which is itself the real illusion.

"As a teacher, I remain a lifelong student. I want to model by my example an ingrained attitude of adventure and curiousity, and a willingness to wrestle with the tools of expression for my students. I believe firmly that instruction in painting should be historically grounded without being bound by history. Painting is, for me, about being in the moment. It is therefore absolutely contemporary, seeking useful tools in the past without needing the past's permissions. I am, to state it bluntly, a committed Realist."

William E. Elston, December 21, 2009