Artist Statement
Painting is magic, an old professor of mine told me once. It can be the place of hopes and dreams, a place to explore the unknown. It can be a place to learn about the world. Those words rang true to me and I try to keep those words present in my work. I want to look beyond the surface of things and see what ties everything together. Can we bring our dreams into a working reality? Can paintings give us a sense of hope or a sense of the wonder we experience when all things are new? My work focuses on breaking away from a habituated viewing of what is around us and looks for the small details that enrich life. What is it about a path that draws us in? How can we look at a cloud and see something more? How do we move about in the natural world and feel its proximity?
People have used the natural world as shelter, as food, as a connection to the spirit. I use this subject matter in my paintings as a place that allows me to explore the differences between my experience, intuition, wishes and concerns. I want it to be the place where I leave generic thinking. I can paint a rock, but the rock can bring more meaning into a work if it is a rock that was collected by a friend in Patagonia or perhaps was a rock collected in my own backyard. In order to paint the rock I need to observe it carefully. How does the light play against its surface? Was the rock created by temperature so high that it became like glass? When I use a plant in the painting I think about how it grew. Where did it come from; how may it have been used in the past or how may we use it in the future? The paintings stem from this natural growth process of creating meaning.
Donna Torres
