Pam Grau - Return to the Wildness

There are places that stay with you long after you’ve left them. Alaska was one of those places for me. Its vastness—those luminous skies, mirrored lakes, and quiet stretches of wildness—did something to my sense of scale and presence. I returned home with more than photographs; I carried an imprint, a vibration I wasn’t ready to set down.

In the studio, that imprint has become an evolving language. I’ve been layering paint, ink, and collage papers, letting memory guide composition more than observation. At first, the landscapes came through clearly, almost like visual postcards. But as time passes, the clarity softens. Shapes dissolve, colors drift, and what surfaces instead is feeling—resonance rather than record.

This new body of work leans into abstraction not because I’ve forgotten Alaska, but because the memory itself is shifting. It’s becoming more internal, more emotional, more dreamlike. I’m learning to let the work follow that rhythm. To trust the blur. To allow space for what can’t be fully articulated but still wants to be seen.

Art, for me, is often the act of holding onto something as it changes—honoring the echo as much as the original sound. And Alaska, with all its wild quiet, continues to echo beautifully.