Cynthia Whalen Nelson at Croker + Griffin Gallery

271 Main Street, Wakefield, RI 02879

Ph: 401-783-0770

Email: crokerandgriffin@msn.com

A R T + D E S I G N

ARTIST'S STATEMENT

As an artist, I have always had a deep respect for the land in which I paint. I have been an environmentalist as long as I can remember...as a child I remember believing that the earth was a living organism to be treated with as much regard as if it could bleed or breathe. As an adult, I still feel that pull, and I am an avid recycler and conservationist.

I carry that same passion for the environment with my paintings...when painting a portrait it is best to have a red or fleshy color under-painting: it makes the portrait have a life-like appearance. Because of my deep reverence for the earth, I loved treating my landscapes as a living thing. Over the years I have developed a stule of these fleshy under-paintings that seem to have almost taken over the painting itself.

My landscapes are largely of land that is uninterrupted by man, or respectfully interrupted my man... When painting a landscape, I like to create a sort of dream, I wish the viewer to make their own story, feel the breeze, smell the air or take that path to lose themselves for a while.

As an artist matures in their style, I think it is only natural that we begin to look inward for inspiration. I have gone back and forth for several years now with my more introspective work, Soulscapes. It has been freeing and a bit therapeutic in many ways to share with the world your inner most fears, desires, pain, and regrets.... We all have them... and women in particular seem to have very specific commonalities in our stories about our lives.

Although I have always been greatly influenced by Latin American art, recent trips to Central America have inspired me. It was moving to be part of the setting Frida Kahlo created art in, the rich palate of the Mexican landscape, and the most beautiful churches and customs as well. I began to collect milagros, and paint prayer cards. Combined, these influences seemed to have entered my dreams in a very strange way, as a kind of porthole that gave language to express a very personal inward voyage. These introspective peices inforporate plant and human anatomy in a surrealistic journey of the soul. I believe we as humans share a collevtive unconscious, it is my hope that these images will touch others in a very subliminal way.

EDUCATION: