Courtney Balson
- May 15
- 3 min read
Courtney Balson is a painter based in Richmond, Virginia. She started painting from nature during her third pregnancy, when she was stuck indoors and began working from the thousands of photographs she had taken over the years. She still photographs and sketches outside before going into the studio, where she works in acrylic on wood panel and canvas. Her work is a response to habitat loss and the quiet disappearance of native landscapes.
Q: How did you get into painting nature? Was there a particular place or moment that started it?
A: I've always enjoyed the outdoors and think it's critical for humans to be in nature. Hiking, nature photography, and bird-watching have long been hobbies of mine. During my third pregnancy, I really struggled physically, and was stuck inside more than I wanted to be. An idea took root that I should use my thousands of photographs in another way, and I started drawing or painting from my own references. I would sometimes collage or overlap several images digitally before working in physical material. Nature photography is still a part of my current practice.
Q: Your process begins outdoors, meditating, sketching, photographing. What are you looking for out there before the studio work begins?
A: The thing about outdoor studies is that you don't know what it will be that pulls you. You have to be still, quiet, and open to letting the space show you something interesting.
I walk the same paths often, and each time I notice something new, something different, something extraordinary. Sometimes it's the way the light hits a leaf, a new bloom, a gnarly log washed into the river, the contrast of wet soil against a sprouting plant—each season has new offerings. I'm always gripped by the complex layers and diversity of colors, shapes, and textures in a given setting.
Q: You destroy and rebuild your paintings cyclically, imitating how nature works. What does that look like in practice?
A: It's easy to get sucked into painting a pretty nature picture, but nature isn't all prettiness—it has many personalities and many seasons. If a piece is looking too "nice," I push myself to find the courage to destroy it and rebuild it. This could mean adding a risky color, a thick line, completely glazing over a section of the work, flipping the work and painting from a new vantage point, covering something old with something new, etc. When a painting has a problem, giving it a new problem can often help fix both.
Q: Your art is a response to habitat loss and overdevelopment. How present is that concern when you're actually painting?
A: Ecological concerns are somewhat of a fixation for me, especially since I spend a lot of time outdoors, hiking, walking, and gardening. In the studio, I get lost in deep work and can be totally present in what I'm doing. Even so, my awareness of environmental issues is so internalized that it unconsciously shapes the way I work, what I choose to create, and how it's executed.
Q: Your titles are interesting. Takeover, Wild Spaces, Stonecrop. How do they relate to what you're painting?
A: Titles are tricky. I feel more self-conscious about my titles than I do my art. Most of my titles are pulled from the characteristics of the scene that has emerged at the end of my painting. Sometimes they are so far from the initial intention. This is the final step for me. It means a piece is really done.
Q: What are you working on these days?
A: I'm immersing myself in seasonal transitions and newness. I think I'm interested in a palette change, maybe forcing myself to use "ugly" colors, to make something I didn't think I could, and explore ugliness, or what I perceive as such. I'm trying to be less safe, take more risks, and keep my art practice in a constant cycle of rebirthing.
