Assurity | Michael Burton

When I first visited Nebraska I was naïve because all I wanted to see were endless prairies and cornfields.  I was excited to live here because it was so different from growing up in Massachusetts. But I didn’t understand the subtle complexity of this place. Now, almost twenty years later, I understand why the Nebraska landscape fascinates me.  The amazing weather and beautiful skies are important but the ground, the Floor of the Sky, is where things get interesting. Some paintings are about an abandoned farm where the prairie is trying to reestablish itself. Others are about the haze created by sunlight blasting a frozen field in late winter.  The way an old Dutch barn assumes the color of the earth as it slowly decays. Or how swarms of tiny bugs seem to travel through walls like dark matter. Each painting is digitally created based on my observations across the state.  I used Pro Create on an iPad with brushes I made specifically for objects like grass, cornstalks, dirt, bugs, old clapboard, or milkweed.