I have always been drawn to the landscape. Of all earth's creatures, we are simply a perspective on the natural world, which is based upon our unique ability to mentally remove ourselves from that world. Because of this conceptual separation, we are still trying resolve our complicated and ever changing relationship to nature and perhaps, this is the fundamental lesson implied in our expulsion from the Garden of Eden.

The landscape paintings of Astrid Preston embody all of these principles. As a painter, Preston understands that a landscape framed in the mind's eye is an abstraction, but that a landscape painting is a visual abstraction of that thought. Her work is allegorical, metaphysical, and sometimes surreal in the traditions of Edward Hicks, Henri Rousseau, Giorgio de Chirico, and Rene Magritte.

Formal gardens of classic symmetry and neatly trimmed hedges in the shape of mazes not only reflect man's desire for order, but also become symbols of his eternal estrangement from nature. As Robert L. Pincus suggests, "like all strong landscape painters, Preston realizes that the depicted scene is a territory of ideas."

Preston's landscapes are never peopled. They are empty, enigmatic stages prompting the viewer to anticipate the phenomena about to occur. Employing extraordinary draftmanship and painterly skill, Preston creates idyllic habitations for the contemplative, feeling intellect.