If you'd have asked me when I was in my late teens/early twenties if I was interested in painting landscapes or still life subjects, I would have laughed. I only wanted to draw and paint people. I was more interested in body language, and the artists I admired most were able to capture people in their day-to-day elements.
In studying and following their work, I learned to pay attention to the mood of a space, or how a moment felt. I used to sit in bus stations and airports with my sketchbook, doing quick drawings so that I wouldn't get caught loitering. Having a strong visual memory allowed me to return home and draw or paint people I had seen in passing. In the last twenty years, however, I have taken hundreds of photographs of places I have driven through or flown over, while discovering a love for big open spaces and patterns in landscapes. Up until recently, I used a 35 mm camera to take photos while riding as a passenger. Opening the shutter abstracts the image, almost like squinting does, and I like to paint from those photographs--separating the colors and striations. I am always looking for the brightest points in those images, and how they outline a space. The line between the earth and sky is so appealing to me, and I have found myself in places where I can't tell where one ends and the other begins. While finding my bearings as a painter in a new studio space, I started to create arrangements with common objects. This practice and these exercises are meditations. They began as very quick studies, with little attention to "getting them right", and have continued to evolve with greater focus on where the light hits the object and how the shadows change in natural light, (depending on the time of day when I am working). Rich color is important to me and exaggerations of the surfaces around the object. The starting point is always very simple and I have become comfortable with building layers. I am working with acrylics on heavy Bond paper, at this time. |
"I decided that the only thing I could do that was nobody else's business was to paint. I could do as I chose, because no one would care."
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VESSELSARTIST STATEMENT:
...we find beauty not in the thing itself but in the patterns of the shadows, the light and the darkness, that one thing against another creates….Were it not for shadows, there would be no beauty - Junichiro Tanizaki, In Praise of Shadows Vessels is a continuation of my exploration of how changing light affects color and form. Sitting with objects and paying attention to their relationship with the surface on which they rest, grounds them, with lines that change as the light shifts through my studio windows. The color of the surface is important. I painted the table red for a distinct contrast to the object. There’s a fine white, reflected line that follows shadows and further defines the shape of the object that I find so lovely, almost sensuous. The objects I choose to study, most recently, empty containers, elicit possibility in that they can be filled with most anything. For the purpose of painting them or drawing them, they can stand alone. Still, they are filled with light and dark, form, color. Previously, my focus had been figurative. I love faces and body shapes. But for now, I am content to practice seeing still objects and creating renderings that celebrate layers of color. The space behind them and in front becomes basic shape with minimal focus. As I continue this process, I am gradually looking at how all of the lines connect and intersect to define the space. Perhaps, I will explore the single object within a larger space. |
Recent Work
Common Objects & Uncommon Places
A selection of acrylics on paper which focus on common objects--meditations on the shape and color of a variety of fruit, as well as, landscapes from her travels through the United States, Portugal and Spain.
A selection of acrylics on paper which focus on common objects--meditations on the shape and color of a variety of fruit, as well as, landscapes from her travels through the United States, Portugal and Spain.