"Homage to Native American
Women" |
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New Arts Program, Inc.
23rd INVITATIONAL SALON EXHIBITION
OF SMALL WORKS
138 artists from
25 states and 16 international from 11 countries
May 25 through July 15, 2012
Essays by Janet Barna,
Joe Beddell, Sue Wall and Peggy Zehring
NAP Exhibition Space,
173 West Main Street, Kutztown, PA
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Small scale works are exciting to me
for many reasons. I like the intimacy of being able to hold the
piece in my hands. The size requires a distillation and clarity
of ideas without limiting their importance or power. Working
small enables me to trust and follow my instincts and impulses,
often combining several separate observations into a single image.
As a painter, I try to keep an open mind in selecting subjects,
to not be deflated by failures, or take too much pride in successes.
I try not to let my creative energy and focus be diminished by
the daily challenges and demands of life. From the foundation
of works I have already painted, I move forward. Each painting
is a journey, unique and complete, like an ever evolving musical
score. I feel a sense of excitement always on the verge of discovery.
Each work is a new opportunity to see, experience, and reflect.
I find working in a small scale in complete harmony with achieving
these goals and exploring my own journey. I realize these reflections
are very personal, and another artist might make the exact same
comments about large scale works. Each artist creates the notes
and measures of their own life's symphony.
Sue Wall ©2012
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"Abbee Mourns Someone Lost" |
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I started painting at the age of three.
Now at sixty, time seems an unfair limitation when thinking of
the unending succession of images racing through my mind.
I have always felt in harmony with the
intimacy of small-scaled works, never underestimating or limiting
their tremendous power. My paintings are statements somewhere
between reality and imagination, between spontaneous and intellectual
control. I often combine several separate observations into a
single image, enjoying the relationships between patterns, shapes,
cultures.
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Small scaled work enhances the importance
of maintaining an unfragmented unity of space. Cropping creates
a self-enclosed curious tension, complete and contained rather
than an artificial limitation. In small works I especially value
technical simplicity, directness of medium, uncluttered representation,
and elimination of unessential elements. There is a heightened
concept of seeing, a sense of spilled truth. The success or failure
of each painting depends on my decisions, abilities, challenging
me on all levels, using all my capabilities, pushing me into
previously unexplored areas.
Each painting feels like a new beginning,
provides a sense of excitement as if on the verge of discovery,
a curiosity of the unconscious and the predictable. Reality is
so abstract, with so many versions, different interpretations,
integration of many perspectives, a sort of echo system. My paintings
deal with expectancy, growth as well as decay, hints of forces
beyond control, the transient nature of life. Often I am driven
by impulses I cannot define, painting with my whole being, a
life long commitment. When we declare for ourselves what we want
in life, it becomes a foundation for what we create.
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