The Force of Forgetting, 2025

Reese’s most recent work has been heavily influenced by her interest in the art of Japanese Gardening. Less the practice of gardening itself (though she does personally love to garden), but rather the philosophy and approach behind the art.

At the time of creating these paintings, Reese was reading both “The Japanese Garden” by Sophie Walker, a comprehensive exploration of the history of Japanese Gardening as well as the historical novel “The Garden of Evening Mists” by Tan

Twan Eng, about the complex relationship between post-WWII Malaya (Malasia) and Japan. While vastly different approaches to exploring the art of Japanese Gardening, both books exposed Reese to the thinking behind the

art. Her interest began to take shape around the concept of how the gardeners were thinking of not just the garden itself, but what lay beyond the confines of the garden –– how shaping the path, or the bushes, or the reflecting pond in a specific

way influenced how one understood and interacted with the mountains miles away on the horizon. The art of “borrowed scenery”. Japanese gardening was all about controlling nature, yet they understood that not all nature could

be controlled. They could not control the mountains, but they could control the way in which you experienced them within the garden itself. This resonated with Reese in her approach to painting. She can control the composition, the colors,

the textures of the piece, but she could not control the environment it exists within or the way a viewer might interact with it. There is control until there is not.