Description
Mikyla Baggstrom-Wild, Buried in asphalt 2025, acrylic on canvas, modeling paste, pebbles, epoxy resin. Image courtesy the artist.
Artist’s Statement:
This work is a response to the quiet violence of industrialism; the way roads carve through land, erasing histories, flattening stories, and replacing memory with infrastructure. Buried in asphalt is built with real gravel and resin, creating a textured surface that mimics the weight and permanence of man-made paths. It asks what lies beneath, whose footsteps came before the road? What was silenced in the name of progress?
By bringing gritty, physical elements into the canvas, the work invites viewers to feel the friction between past and present, land and development, presence and erasure. Especially in rural spaces, where identity and land are tightly woven.
