Join the Deer Isle Artists Association on Sunday, January 6, at 1:30 PM for DIAA’s second 2018–2019 winter session of ART matters 4, an opportunity for artists to share their work and talk about it with the public. The theme of this program is “COLOR COLOR COLOR” and will feature artists Jill Finsen, Susan Finsen and Walter Smalling.
Artists will discuss their work with each other, then the audience will join in. DIAA Board Member Hub White will serve as moderator. A reception follows with 44 North Coffee, tea and homemade cake.
Each artist offered a statement that previews their comments during the discussion:
Jill Finsen: “My paintings depict the interplay of the familiar and the imagined. At times awkward and quirky, they celebrate emotional responses to the people, objects and places I portray. Rather than realistic hues and forms, I use bold color, flattened planes and varying paint texture to invite the viewer in through emotion rather than by offering a map of specifics. It is unimportant whether the viewer knows that a particular painting depicts a cove in Maine, a beach on Cape Cod or a specific home or friend. My intent is to suggest that the viewer might share in the joy of that space or engage with the subject of my portraits. Painting from observation or memory, I create exaggerated objects and leave anchoring details unresolved within an imagined space. Viewers can roam the image for themselves, entering where they will and leaving with an experience that is both aesthetic and affecting.”
Susan Finsen: “My process is a combination of intuitive drawing, conscious shaping and layering, and the search for my spontaneous 5-year old self. Each painting begins with random crayon and paint mark-making. Marks and shapes are made and covered up, imagery is created, erased, added to and reimagined. I keep working until the surface feels interesting, using color, line, shape and plane changes to express myself about what I feel, see, remember or invent.”
Walter Smalling: “Having worked as a photographer for my entire adult life, there is no question that my painting is informed by that quest for seeking light that literally and figuratively ‘illuminates’ the world that I see and in which I live. I want to take my imagination beyond what the camera can record in my work as a painter and to help people see things in a new way and in a way that makes them smile and feel good. Instead of being at odds, I like to think my tandem careers complement one another.”
Image: Yellow House Stonington by Walter Smalling
