My passion for painting is rooted in color. In each of these works, color is being analyzed. Studied. Creating a madness within. I am interested in color in regards to light; how certain colors can be placed next to each other to create an illusion of illumination. I am interested in how lines of color can create form and mix optically. How colors can create composition and the effect of refracted light and reflective color. These works embody what I love about painting.

Growing up I always went for the woods. There is something about being away from the city and cars that helps quiet my mind and allows me to delve deeply into my inner world. Painting has been the means by which I reveal how I think and understand life. My style has naturally developed over a lifetime. I paint familiar landscapes but the work is not so much a representation of Nature as an illustration for the story I tell. I look to Nature for truth. As an artist I strive to create a thought-provoking physical object that records the musings of my individual mind. So, I set the scene, design the set, add the characters and call, “action”. You might think of the painting as a visual poem or a page from a story. The mystery always remains.

Painting is a push and pull of visual weight that seems to give the painting a life without exact representation. It starts with color, and moves with a mark or gesture to begin the story. Painting has always been the language I find closest to my own internal dialogue. Most of my paintings are about relationships or rhythms. I like the open space where the viewer can add their interpretation to the landscape or setting. I do not begin to have the answers. I am seeking to give the viewer a choice, to put their story into the picture. The abstractions are again a push and pull of the gesture. How does one color play off its compliment? The exhibition is a balance of abstracts with elements of figures. The series is composed of mostly large canvases with smaller more moderately priced work.

The 2nd Annual MSU Graduate Student exhibition Sightlines brings together the diverse voices of thirteen graduate students who navigate the intersection of context, perception, and reinterpretation. The title suggests both a literal and metaphorical perspective, inviting viewers to trace the distinct paths each artist has followed in their exploration of complex themes. By presenting individual approaches within a shared space, Sightlines reflects how each artist’s practice shifts, responds to, and redefines the boundaries of their medium and subject matter. The art in Sightlines spans a variety of disciplines, unified by a common thread of contextual inquiry. Each work reframes ideas of memory, place, and identity, challenging traditional narratives and reshaping our understanding of familiar landscapes and cultural markers. Through experimentation and a dynamic blend of materials, these artists expose new perspectives on topics ranging from personal histories to environmental change. Sightlines captures the transformative journey of these artists as they move from students to emerging practitioners. The exhibition invites the audience to consider their own lines of sight—how we see, interpret, and ultimately understand the world around us.

An erratic collection of memories and dreams. Similar experiences with different interpretations. When you drive down a rural road, do you see the same things I see? I would imagine that you encounter the same things but process them in your own unique way. Just like the stories we’re told through generations; same content, different take away. This collection reveals the beauty of interpretation. What feels familiar can be beautifully individual.

"These paintings are from the past eight years. A period when I would drive my children to grade school. The early morning drive was filled with constant questions and chatter about the day to day life of my young children attending school. What a joy. The drive home was a stark contrast. Driving east of Springfield, it was silent in the car, the absence of giggles and singing and questions. However the sunrises were spectacular. A quiet joy, inspiring. I’d rush into the house and down to my studio to capture the lingering impression of the colors that stretched across the most brilliant and massive of nature’s canvases. An ever changing brilliance. Extraordinary, so filled with color or heavily moody, dark and brooding with only a hint of sunlight. These are my attempts to hold in oil the hope and promise of each new day, that soft spoken sunlight." -J.D. Hull

Surrendering to the time cycle our sun provides can be a gratifying yet cruel human experience. There is importance in understanding our moments in the sun, the light shown upon our form is a gift rather than a routine-managed, laborious human task merely clocking the significance of our existence. Reflecting on the shadows our own shape casts on the earth or walls that surround us is an introspective exercise that can lead our actions to a sharper aesthetic contour of the image we hope to portray as time openly tracks our actions. Intuitively looking to nature for solace, I find beauty in the instinctual movements of animals, insects, and the growth of flora. Capturing the essence of shape, line, and light through the oldest and most ancient of art mediums, encaustic painting and the cyanotype photographic process, I am giving homage to the purest of living organisms that inhabit my world. Both artistic processes are spontaneous and rely on light and heat for materialize survival. Feeling a connection to the spirit of animals or the growth of a seed planted reminds me that tracking time while observing all living shadows and shapes, provides a feeling of gratitude and connection to the nature of being human.

“Jane Parker’s paintings and drawings richly avoid the sin of description while evoking a plethora of riches. They lead to a specificity of place and object only possible in the ambiance of the imagination—a place somewhere between music and a walk in the woods. Her work is to be entered rather than seen—experienced rather than admired. She consistently eschews artifice in favor of a reality that is less provable than palpable.” —Malki Sadeq, 2013

Marveling at my finds during walks in the woods, I started collecting specimens to study with the intention of making them the subject of this show. It was a good time to work close to home, quietly, innocently and looking to the earth and nature for peace of mind. The small paintings are studies so I might understand and practice painting the subject and form. They are otherworldly and at the same time human.

"The inspiration I draw from nature comes from living in the Ozarks most of my life. Through my work, I engage in an ongoing dialogue with nature, sometimes even hiding text in the landscapes I depict. My view is at once romantic and melancholic as I consider nature’s uncertain future. Surreal elements emerge as I combine representation with the imaginary; flowers seem to dance, birds seek love, trees ask us to look. My paintings deepen my relationship with landscape—and the more my reverence grows, the more sacred that connection becomes." - Lil Olive

Center stage in my art is the figure—an object in motion, as if the figure is caught, just for an instant; a glimpse, a snapshot before the gesture is complete. I’m not in search of exact representation. I’m intent rather on provoking a sense of tension or intensity. These plus color, bring the emotion to the painting. Whether spatial or expressionistic, the implied relationship between figures is intended to arouse curiosity. Painting is like a freeze frame. It helps both the viewer and the painter to pause—if just for a second as we enter into that two dimensional space. Most of the time the stage is imaginary or based on dreams and memories.

Insatiable visual hoarding has led me to a tactile realization that moments in nature need to be spent more mindfully:  instantaneous yet full of sensory meditation.  Bits of beauty rich with colors, textures, and sounds of nature flood my imagination when remembering a moment spent in Earth’s ever-changing environment.  Traveling to new places or stepping outside into the familiarity of my own backyard, I’m always inspired by nature.  Our landscape, its bits and pieces transform yet stay ever ready in our minds and at our digital fingertips, like a personal binary code for our human experiences.  “terra:  Memory Bits”, is a series of paintings found through traversing thousands of frozen moments that have been digitally saved, hoarded, and quickly stockpiled away but longing for another breath of organic life that accompanies one more fresh, new look. These paintings are inspired from digital photographs taken of nature and then re-imagined through organic tactile colors, textures, lines, and smells.  Each composition hides a faint hint of the painting’s title in binary code becoming a relevant pattern or motif of numbers, much like our visually literacy and understanding of how we weave beauty and facts into our daily lives which are married by nature and technology.

Collage describes both the technique and the resulting work of art in which pieces of paper, photographs, fabric and other ephemera are arranged and stuck down onto a supporting surface” according to Tate Museum. Collage became a prevalent practice in the 20th century and has evolved as different art movements and artists have shaped it. Our artist, Stephanie Cramer, has incorporated collage into her work for over twenty years. She loves the hunt for “items with a soul” and the beauty of ink on paper captures her imagination. Many other artists feel just the same way and have been drawn to using collage materials in their work as well. See how these largely local artists use the art of collage today. Opening Reception: November 6th, 6-10 pm 2020 Exhibition Showing: November 6th– November 27th 2020