EFFLORESCENCE - UPCOMING SHOW AT KINGSTON GALLERY - March 2021

Efflorescence - Kingston Gallery Show in Project Space, March 3 – 28, 2021

2020 has been one weird and sad year. I’ve been painting - flowers are a favorite subject.  The mixing of the colors, the way the oil glides on the canvas, the beauty it can create, the lusciousness of it all.  I’ve been fixated on realism in oil painting as far back as I can remember.  Painting is still very much alive and well. I’ve had  time to re-discover glazing during this pandemic, seeking knowledge from a friend – those discussions and processes have been enriching.  It takes patience, skill and quick brush strokes to get a layer of glazing on just right. I think I’m getting it.  The large painting called Efflorescence has three layers of glaze on the canvas.  It became an almost scientific experiment to see what translucent colors worked best.

I’ve been lucky to watch flowers grow in my yard. So many of us have taken to nature during this time.  I’ve been outside more than I’ve ever been in my adult life, walking and walking and observing. It provides a sense of calm. This past summer, I visited friends’ gardens, visited garden centers (safe places), and enjoyed being present.  I began to know the various varieties, I listened to what worked and what didn’t. Flowers are life itself.  Their shapes, forms and colors are absolutely exquisite. Flowers are reminders that life can be amazing and beautiful, and sometimes very short – we have to remember this.

Flowers have always been a part of my daily life, occasionally supermarket bought and sometimes dried. 

Some of the oil paintings of flowers in this show are based on old paintings, rearranged a bit with new flowers or imaginary ones. Tulips are a sincere favorite – I borrow from photos of online tulip varieties since the unusual ones are too hard to find locally, especially in a pandemic. Parrot tulips are remarkably colorful and radiant.  Tulips symbolize deep love and rebirth. They are one of the first to bloom in the spring.  Victorians associated tulips with charity.  Attributes in these times.

 

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My artist statement for my December 4 - 29 2019 show at Kingston:

Artist Statement

Forests today are part fantasy and part dread. I'd rather think of the fantasy part to lift my spirits up. My drawings and installations in Intangible Aspects of the Forest harken to the time I looked in wonder at the woodland while walking to school through one particular mini-forest. This was a short cut I took when I didn't take a bus. It was a patch of earth, no bigger than two tractors, hidden from the street, or so I thought. I called this space my own. There were fabulous greens, bright blue skies, old oaks, towering pine trees, butterflies, birds, and thick unwieldy grass as well as tossed beer cans and cigarette stubs. I paused and wondered.

And in wondering the mind drifts. As Daniel Goleman's Focus: The Hidden Driver of Excellence states, while focusing enables us to solve problems and achieve goals, daydreaming and mind wandering is our brain in default mode. Self-reflection, incubating new ideas, finding inspiration, and thinking creatively are the benefits of a mind adrift.

The work in this show recreates visual memories of those moments in blue color pencil and graphite drawings and through installations. The saturated blue hues and phalo blues are vibrant, making us feel alive, and the blue tree compositions allow much white space in between the trees, a calming visual. I've used pointillism where the blue pencils become blended to produce depth of color and luminosity. The graphite marks in other drawings are used sparingly so you can see the features of the trees and the textures of the bark. In another work called Scenic World, several snow globes are lined with forests and figurines, conveying a rendition of the Garden of Eden. But even in the Garden of Eden, reality can set in. Fallen, a graphite drawing, depicts fallen trees and regeneration. Fallen trees make way for new habitats – this is nature's way of recycling and then reviving itself.

This is a world I want to continue to be in.