Gerlyn Friesenhahn
New Braunfels, TX
Gerlyn Friesenhahn has taken her passion for the sciences of biology and medicine to becoming a visual artist creating landscape and still life paintings.
MessageGerlyn Friesenhahn transitioned her passion for science and understanding the natural world, from medicine to visual art, when she completed a BFA in Studio Art at Texas State University in 2020 at the age of sixty four. She lives and works in New Braunfels Texas were she was born. She creates landscape and still life oil paintings focusing on color, patterns and openness in natural spaces. She searches for scenes that communicate nostalgia for a simpler life, perhaps as an escape from the mental engagement required to help patients with serious neurological illness but also as a connection to her ancestry. She obtained a BA in Biology from St. Mary’s University in San Antonio, Texas in 1983 and a Doctorate in Medicine from the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio in 1986. She completed a neurology residency at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, Missouri in 1990 and practiced medicine in St. Louis until 2000 when she moved back to Texas. Using scenes of the Texas Hill Country, historical landmarks and rural imagery she tries to capture aesthetic beauty and a feeling of tranquility. Gerlyn’s work is influenced by Julian Onderdonk’s Texas paintings and by female artists, April Gornik and Louis Dodd. She received a Juror’s Merit Award in the Texas State Juried Student Exhibition in 2019.
Statement
My paintings are aesthetic non-confrontational works with imagery that is unambiguous. There is no tension, political, or social motive. I create oil on canvas landscapes and still life paintings of scenes around a small Texas town along the Guadalupe River where I was born. Feeling connected to nature in this place, I search for scenes in warm light conveying a sense of tranquility, reflecting on local history. Trees, wildflowers and a brilliant blue sky draw me into the natural spaces. Flowers are frequently the subject in my paintings as they provide the color and beauty in nature that I’m trying to capture. Flowers have an important role in life celebrations and elevate the meaning of any event. Finding pleasure in this beauty removes distractions and provides a brief sense of relief from life stress. If the viewer feels the same emotion, then my work has communicated its message.
This town where I find the subjects for my paintings is changing due to growth and development. Many of the scenes I paint reminisce of a time when the town was more isolated from city life. As the wide-open spaces become rapidly urbanized and the town fills with buildings, its character is changed. The main street gas station is now a UPS store, the Post Office a restaurant and my grandparents’ home a B & B. My paintings may communicate nostalgia for a simpler life, more connected to nature.
As I photograph scenes while walking down sidewalks, park pathways and river banks I notice the changes and try to capture a unique perspective by drawing on compositions of artists I admire. Julian Onderdonk’s Texas Hill Country paintings are an inspiration to paint the local scenes of wildflowers unique to this region while adding the feeling of vacancy that Ed Hopper captured in his paintings. April Gornik’s modified landscapes inspire me to simplify scenes trying to create drama in nature. Like Lois Dodd’s paintings with views through windows and doorways, I also try to place the viewer into the artist’s space. My brushwork falls between impressionism and realism with attempts to create a painting separate from photorealism.
By creating pleasurable images, I focus on beauty as a distraction from life’s stress. As a neurologist I know that visual aesthetics engage the entire brain, therefore if the viewer feels pleasure by seeing a beautiful image, distress can become subordinate. Visual art has a power difficult for science or literature to explain. As Edward Hopper said “If I could say it in words there would be no reason to paint.” Likewise, I hope to speak to the viewer through my paintings.
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