James Woodside - Working outdoors forces me to have a direct and immediate relationship with the subject matter I'm painting. Working quickly, I try to simplify impossibly complex forms into simple dramatic shapes. I try to distill down what I am looking at into something I can understand and manage. I consider this immediacy to be crucial to the success and strength of my work. The limitations of time, weather, and transportation of materials all become part of the genetic makeup of the painting itself and provide a set of natural parameters. For me, this helps the work maintain a fresh in-the-moment credibility, and a sense of real authenticity.A direct response to the "power of the place" is what interests me. By responding to what is around me, without commentary or sentimentality, I'm not attempting to "capture" nature, but rather to just bear witness, to make tangible some of the beauty and power that I have felt in these places.