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Ducommun plays with ambiguity between “micro and macro,” creating immersive scenes that make the viewer feel like they are underwater, with sea life surrounding them. But a simple shift in perspective also allows one to also read the images as a beach, with seaweed, stones, and water washing back and forth over the surface. Yet another shift in perspective has the viewer reading the work as a landscape seen from above, as a map of geographical and geological features that record the passage of time and the power of natural forces like water to sculpt the earth’s whole surface. Here, time and memory play out on a grand scale, with the footprint of the water and the story of the earth’s evolution being so much longer than human history. While much of Ducommun’s work is based on gestural painting technique, she has also introduced a unique practice of hand-carving wood-blocks and using them to stamp her paintings (with paint, of course). The imperfect repetition of forms (many refer to a branching motif common to trees and plants, river systems, even the blood vessels in our body) reminds us of how many patterns exist in the natural world. Whether you prefer to think of them as genetic expressions, typologies, or archetypes, there is something both fragile and constant about the way they continue to reappear.
