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"Art has always held a central place in my life helping to shape decisions about where and how to live and how to make a living and a life. It is quite simply, essential to my being and I hope to be creating as long as I am living."
Brant News Article, Sat 11, July 2009 - The definition of fearless |
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Where do you do your work?
My creative nature leads me to draw or paint or make or gather ideas or materials wherever I happen to be. At home my studio space varies with the season. A "Summer Studio" beckons me outside from Spring to Fall when chilly weather encourages a return to the indoor studio/home office which stretches across the back of my house.
Do you work from life, or from photographs or from imagination?
My inspiration is in the land and people I know and the human and environmental issues which concern me. Drawings, paintings and mixed media works have their source in observation, memory or imagination and sometimes I incorporate collaged elements, snippets of text and photo transfer processes in the development of specific works. |
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What moves you most in life, either to inspire or upset you?
From earliest memory I have been engaged in the encounter with the physical world and the creatures which inhabit it and have been trying to express the feelings and thoughts, questions, concerns and understandings that these arouse.
Much that is deeply significant is not easily seen or understood. What lies beneath the surface, what is ignored or unnoticed is what intrigues me and seems to require my attention. |
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Where do you feel art is going?
Art as human expression reflects the time in which it is created. In such a complex and tumultuous time with rapid technological advances, art will, as always, reflect the context in which it comes into being.
There is a broad spectrum of expressive options and cutting edge work is being produced by artists using new technologically based media, film and video as well as interdisciplinary performance based works.
At the same time, both traditional media and found and discarded materials are being used in nontraditional ways to express responses to socio-political and environmental issues.Contemporary visual art is as varied as are the people who make it. |
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What is the role of the artist in society?
The artist can be like the canary in the mine reacting first to trouble in the environment... As people who are differently abled and sensitive to what many may not notice, artists may call attention to what might be important but ignored.
What is the place of your work in society?
I see my art making as a form of conversation between me and the world, first as I use materials and techniques to create it and then between the work and those who encounter it.
I hope that my art would cause viewers to pause and consider and engage with it and perhaps would cause the viewer to wonder or question or become intrigued and want to go further with it.
What technique do you use?
Drawing and painting and constructing things are important to me and my techniques vary in response to the work at hand.
Which is more important to you, the subject of your painting, or the way it is executed?
For me, both content (subject) and form (execution) are important so that whatever is created should have integrity. The work must be executed in a way that is appropriate to its intent and content so that its form fits its purpose and expresses that as well as possible. |
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Do you prefer a perfect smooth technique or a more energetic expressive technique and why?
As for surface, I believe that either smooth or active surfaces could be desirable, depending on which best serves the content and intent of a particular work. |
Works in progress...
A sample of works Arlene will be showing the Brantford Arts Block on May 15th, 2010. |
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