Quiet Moments || Exhibition

My exhibit of acrylic paintings has three different components: landscapes (some with birds or buildings), a series of hunting and fishing antiques, and a whimsical series of children’s paintings. My landscapes focus on the simple, quiet beauty of everyday nature: prairie grasses and wildflowers, backwoods roads and creeks, marshes, and songbirds. My hunting and fishing antique series focuses on the story of a pastime that these objects share with us. With their weathered wood, rusting metal, and chipped paint, they bring back memories of grandparents and great-grandparents who used them in their everyday lives. My children’s series was created for my seven grandchildren. Each piece features a different habitat filled with animals and birds—some easy to spot and some half-hidden—painted with a blend of realism and whimsy.

When you look at my paintings, I hope they inspire you to take a closer look and find the beauty in the simple, quiet, everyday pieces of nature all around us. I hope you see the beauty and memories in weathered antiques, and find joy and charm in the playful animals of the children’s paintings.

ARTIST STATEMENT:

I enjoy painting a variety of subjects but a common theme in many of them is a simple piece of nature – wildflowers and grasses waving in the breeze, songbirds flitting around in an overgrown garden, landscapes that look ordinary at first glance, but if you look more closely, are filled with a quiet beauty – they’re a part of our everyday life, rich in color, shape and texture, but easily overlooked. I’m also drawn to paint old buildings that are falling into ruin, weathered fenceposts, and hunting/fishing antiques. I love the challenge of capturing the many textures of old, weathered wood that is cracked and peeling, rusting metal, and crumbling stones – the more weathered and used, the more beautiful.

I’ve also been working on a series of paintings that are quite different from the rest of my work: I refer to them as my ‘children’s paintings,’ though they are actually paintings that I’ve done for each of my seven grandchildren. They are paintings of a partially realistic and partially whimsical nature; each set in their own habitat, they are filled with animals, happily getting along with each other. Many of the animals you can see right away, but the more you look, the more you discover!

I work in two mediums: acrylic and graphite. I love the versatility of acrylic paint and the precise detail that I can achieve with graphite. I want to inspire those who view my work to see the beauty in the simple, everyday life that surrounds them.