Looking Up

While Eunika Rogers' new show at Blue Rain Gallery is themed around finding light—physically, emotionally and spiritually—her technique and process are equally important to her body of work. In roughly 8 pieces for her show Never Miss a Daylight, Rogers brings the landscape alive by painting with clay and other natural materials, “holding a conversation with the earth itself,” says Bekah Kolbe, manager of Blue Rain's Durango, Colorado, location. Rogers explains, “My primary intention is to explore fragility of the earth as it relates to time. I combine the origin of our existence (medium) with the subject, leading me and also the viewer to a thought-provoking narrative about our purpose and interconnectivity...I don’t just represent landscape in my work, but it is through this collaboration with nature that I construct pieces of that landscape onto itself, making it much more representative of the natural world.”

- By Chelsea Koressel

For the new collection, Rogers started creating in the winter months, what she calls “the season of darkness,” with a focus on aspen trees and snow-covered mountains. “I became obsessed with light and looked for ways to surround myself in it physically and emotionally,” she says. “Living in Telluride, Colorado, white aspen trees and snow certainly helped. [For these subjects], the difference is how I look. I look up to see the light and I look through them in winter light. On both occasions, [the aspens, for instance], blend in into the light, leaving only their stark contrasts, iconic eye and shadowy pillars. The repetition of their trunks...is meditative; light inducing.”

For her snowy-peaked piece