Paintings, Prints and a Mixture of Both
This show presents work I've created over the past 2 or 3 months.
In it I explore the boundaries between painting and printmaking.
Sometimes I take prints from a painting I've done in oil before the paint dries and rework the image I get after putting the painting through the press.
In "Bearded Man,", I added oil paint to bring out the image of a face and in "Leaf Series 2", it's easier to see how I transformed the print by adding pastel pencil marks.
Other times the image works as just a print or just a painting - "Fields and Tree" and "Plant Life" are good examples of this. They both have a nature theme but the first is a
one-off print, with nothing added, and the second is a painting with just paint. Whatever works!
About me ...
I live in the countryside about an hour and a half drive east of Montreal, an area called the Eastern Townships.
I live with my husband, cat and 5 cows on a small farm about 3 km (half a mile) from the nearest village.
The beautiful views of hills and forests inspire me and I love the simple life that comes with living in the country and tending to what we affectionately call our little slice of paradise.
I enjoy working in several different mediums - painting, printmaking, collage, drawing and sculpture, switching back and forth to try new things and take what I've learned from one
medium to apply it to another.
I do realistic work to improve my skill at expressing something I have in mind but I have the most fun doing more expressive, abstract work, like all the pieces in this show.
I think of my art studio as a place of refuge.
When I want to spend some time in the peace of my own mind, I take an unfinished work and bring the creatures and faces I see in it to life by emphasizing them just enough to
make them apparent to someone else.
It doesn't matter how strange they look, they're simply there, being.
Or, I look for colours and shapes that appeal to me and work them until the image feels done.
Underlying it all is the wonder I feel when I see what has come out, the reassurance I get from looking at colour and a knowing that there's so much more where that came from.
My hope in doing art is to express the beauty I see around me and to share that appreciation of our world with others.
All the prints I make are one-of-a-kind: what I call monoprints and some people call monotypes.
I've signed them on the back so a signature on the bottom won't prevent the work from being turned a different way since many of the images work on their side or even upside down.
Diane Cameron
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