A recent issue of Wildlife Art magazine interviewed an artist whose vision I’ve admired, whose work I find intriguing and original. She paints in quite muted tones, and the article said, in part:
She frowns on fantasy displays of color, believing them false. “I don’t have color getting in the way of the composition. Here are the colors in nature; how can I improve on that?”
I was surprised and puzzled at her comment. I do not know which artists she was thinking of … but surely one of the joys of the art world is that we all see in different ways. She has painted ravens, in quiet black and ochre tones - yet, when I depict a raven I see beautiful blues and purples in its plumage, and to paint it otherwise would be untrue to my vision. Cadmiums and carbazoles and ceruleans are essential to the passion of my process. And color IS part and parcel of my composition, most especially when it comes to those damnably frustrating and - if they work - satisfying abstract backgrounds.
The diversity of human - and art - experience is something not to judge, but to celebrate.
Painting: “Raven Study #2″, 6×8 oil on handmade muslin panel.
Visions West Gallery (Bozeman/Livingston, MT) 406.222.0337
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