Shaconage takes its name from a Cherokee term traditionally associated with the Blue Ridge Mountains, meaning “place of blue smoke.” The expression evokes the atmospheric veils that envelop the landscape, where mountains, mist and distance dissolve into shifting tonalities of blue.

In this series, Maira Ribena translates that sense of atmospheric suspension into a material exploration of stillness, perception and the relationship between nature and abstraction.

Working with natural Violet Ochre earth pigment sourced from the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, plant based acrylic and Baltic Sea sand, the artist brings together materials originating from distinct geographical environments. The resulting surfaces establish a dialogue between landscape and matter, allowing the physical properties of the materials to become an essential part of the visual experience.

Against deep, earthy backgrounds, delicate passages of pale blue, lavender and muted pink emerge through layers of pigment, subtle accumulations and irregular gestures. These interventions suggest traces of mist, erosion and sedimentation without becoming literal representations of the natural world. The paintings exist in a space between landscape and abstraction, where atmospheric impressions are translated into texture, colour and material presence.

The contrast between the density of the earth pigments and the apparent lightness of the chromatic interventions introduces a quiet tension between permanence and transience. The surface becomes a place where different temporalities coexist, recalling the slow geological processes of the landscape alongside the fleeting movement of mist and light.

Central to Shaconage is Ribena's ongoing investigation into stillness as a form of attention. Rather than offering an immediately legible image, the works encourage a gradual encounter in which subtle variations of texture, rhythm and colour reveal themselves through sustained observation.

The series also reflects the artist's growing commitment to materially conscious practices, in which the origins, physical characteristics and expressive possibilities of natural substances become inseparable from the conceptual development of the work.

Ultimately, Shaconage invites viewers to experience landscape not as a distant image, but as a physical and contemplative presence. Through the encounter between earth, pigment and gesture, the paintings create a space for quiet observation, where matter becomes atmosphere and stillness acquires its own visual language.