Storm

stormzart@ymail.com

Upcoming Exhibit

Earlville Opera House

Earlville, New York

November 27 1-3 PM

through December 18

Tuesday through Saturday

10 am to 4 pm





Transitions: Mona Mia

A Retrospective by Storm

Artist Bio

I have been teaching workshops for all ages for 48 years throughout the community and elementary art in public school, young kindergarten through fifth grade, for 26 years. I love art, children, and empowering them with techniques to express their creativity. I like to develop directions for the process that all students can master successfully on their individual levels following their hearts while producing a quality product that they can reflect on with pride and have fun while making it. I am capable of modifying components of the class depending on the needs of the students involved to create an individual adaptation.

I am also a practicing artist approaching the problems of creative expression in my own journey. I show my work locally in upstate New York, am a Friend of CERES Gallery in NYC where I usually exhibit once a year, Rochester Contemporary Art, Brooklyn Library, and other shows that I find interesting. I live in a cottage that I built myself and am surrounded by deciduous forest and enjoy gardening when the season permits.

Special Projects

Ballroom Dance History Exhibit

March 2012 - Guernsey Memorial Library

The exhibit captured images of dancers from the Norwich Dance Club. Funded by the R.C. Smith Foundation, the 2012 Ballroom Dance Week was celebrated with an exhibit at the Guernsey Memorial Library and also with an artifacts exhibit at the Chenango Historicall Society Museum.

Artist Statement

In many of the paintings, my intention was to give the viewer a glimpse into a peaceful moment in the Italian sense of capriccio. In others, particularly those which make use of funerary statuary, one is left questioning aspects of human solitude. It has been said that a landscape does not come alive until there is a figure in it. By using sculptures of human forms, I offer the viewer an identity within the painting. As they are stone, subtly a coldness permeates a peculiar isolation sets in emotionally. This shifts the pastoral mood to quiet thoughtful melancholia. This gives some observers a surrealistic impression of my work. In the architectural alleys, the viewer stands alone on the path. There is always the unseen, something more, a mystery around the corner or through the gate.

I use an indirect Old Master's method of oil painting. The process begins with the application of an abstract acrylic ground. Next, an oil grisaille is painted defining the light and dark areas. Then, multiple layers of oil glazes and varnishes finish the piece.

The first drawing, painted as the ground utilizes the divine geometry of the Golden Section. The divine ratio, from which the golden section is mathematically formulated, is intrinsic in the proportion of nature. A geometric golden "grid" is generated to act as a framework for the placement of objects. This is the basis for a compositional collage of romanticized views sliced from one reality and infused into another. In the process of holistic thinking, my brain collects images or fragments of visual experiences and chaotically categorizes many of them in a way that creates a commingling of ideas. I paint as I think, along a subconscious path of intuitive intelligence. In this mode, I organize my art in ways imaginary to experience. Remaining figurative, my images are extracted from reality and are then reassembled. Therefore, the drawings look realistic although most of these places do not exist in their entirety. Realism is not my ultimate goal, but rather it is an acceptable format for the viewer's psychological response...