Village in the Mist

Pamela Boden

Pamela Boden's work from the late 1940s to the 1960s was greatly influenced by Surrealism and Cubism, and by the time she began creating three dimensional works, the tone of her style also echoed the organic forms found in nature, especially of the high desert of New Mexico where she lived from 1946 to 1955.

Here, the suggestion of the foundational southwestern mesas, as well as worn shepherd and hunter trails leading through the landscape, are present in the labyrinthine composition "Village in the Mist". Boden floats the imagined structure on delicate legs, lending to the feel of an arid, sparse landscape that nevertheless beckons the viewer to explore, and to ponder what kind of lives played out in the desert setting.