Gallery With A Cause • Located in the New Mexico Cancer Center • Benefitting the NMCC Foundation
Please call gallery director Regina Held to arrange a private gallery tour, make a purchase, or ask any questions.
Biography
A lifelong lover of the visual arts, I could be found wandering through New York City Art galleries in the late sixties during my high school years. But it wasn’t until a lull in my writing career in mid-life that I found my way to creating visual art full-time. It was love at first image when I began lessons in a friend’s barn. We used mixed media, using whatever worked to create the image. The teacher quoted “If you can paint a rock, you can paint anything,” a rephrasing of Cezanne’s “Everything in nature is formed upon the sphere, the cone, and the cylinder.” The class focused on natural scenes since we lived in beautiful western New York state, surrounded by vineyards, forests, and the ever-shifting Lake Erie. There was no stopping and my passion exploded painting by painting.
Eventually, I began studying at the State University of New York at Fredonia with Raymond Bonilla, who gave me a foundation in drawing and painting. We studied the Taos painters while learning Old Masters’ techniques. Then, I took classes with noted Cuban American painter, Alberto Rey, who taught me to find my own voice in painting. Today, I continue three series begun during that time: Interiors, Landscapes, and Portraits/Figures. Oil became my métier of choice. I learned and enjoyed creating very small- as well as large-scale paintings.
Two years ago, I moved to Albuquerque, painting in the stunning shadow of the Sandia Mountains. I am most often inspired by atmospheric and emotional effects in landscapes, psychological nuances of interior scenes, and un-self-conscious views of people or animals. No matter what medium I am working in, color, shape, and the line resound as tools for emotional engagement as I continue to explore a range of expression and vision. The desert has opened many new possibilities and visions for my art making. I continue honing my skills and trying new methods and mediums through the New Mexico Art League. Prominent artists, Alice Webb, and Vasili Katakis, as well as others, continue to influence my art making and expand my visual voice. A member of the New Mexico Art League, the Rio Grande Art Association, and the New Mexico Pastel Society, the art and artists of the area inspire me daily.
My work has been exhibited widely, including a First Place Award from the AG gallery in Buffalo, NY. Previous gallery representation included Chautauqua Art Gallery, now in Jamestown, NY and Glass Growers Gallery in Erie, PA.
Artist Statement
My paintings are meditations on place, time, and self. The mystical state inherent in objects, no matter if person, place, or thing, reflects my longstanding interest in the physical nature of the world. I use color to express that “zing” of energy found everywhere, portals for emotion and curiosity. My job is to capture liminal moments and the dreams that inhabit them. The stress inherent in nature, the tension between life and nonlife, reality and otherworldly, mystery and fact, interests me. My attention is drawn to the shapes of masses and the play between complexity and simplicity. I am a Romantic at heart and love beautiful, mysterious images.
Currently, I work in pastel, oil, or acrylic. Each medium draws a slightly different voice or language from me. The energy between the medium, the painting process, and the scene being painted, is where I find myself and the painting starts speaking its own truth.
