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aart statement
and bio |
Lynn Priestley
"Knowledge and sight don't always fit together . . . The way we see things is affected by what we believe .
We only see what we look at. To look is an act of choice."
John Berger, "Ways of Seeing"
The
real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having
new eyes."
Marcel Proust.
A timeless goal of art
is to relieve the grinding physicality of life through a larger and truer
vision. For me, that vision is approached through expressionistic color, which
is another way of looking at people, things or animals; a way of seeing their
souls, so to speak.
The visual world is a dialogue created by complementary colors. If you look
very closely at color, you will see how color works, the vibration and tension
that exists, how it absorbs or reflects surfaces. You see green leaves because
every color is absorbed except green . . . green is reflected. So if I paint
red, the compliment of green, under the leaf, I am mimicking nature.
In painting, there is also a dialogue with myself. Painting is sometimes cathartic.
It can express and put in order my emotional life, the anguish, the happiness
or the joie de vivre.
Nietzsche wrote, "Art is the desire to be different, the desire to be elsewhere."
That is true for me. There is also simply a deep and inexplicable drive to
just paint.
There are many artists that I admire and learn from. In particular, I return
to Henri Matisse, whose abilities to capture 'essence' and know when to quit
applying paint guide me. Richard Diebenkorn's ability to define area into
shapes, thus enhancing the abstract, and his use of multiple layers of paint
in a pentamento fashion, are reflected in many of my works. And, I draw inspiration
and aspiration from regionalist Charles Burchfield's skill at portraying his
area's unusual beauty.
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biography |
In the third grade I started art lessons at the Wayne Art Center in Wayne, Pennsylvania. Two years later, I started private art lessons with Mrs. Balberni in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, which I continued through high school. Through my adolescence, I also attended Moore College of Art in Philadelphia during the summer and weekends.
With a BFA diploma in Painting from the University of Oklahoma in hand, I
moved to south Florida where my first job was as a custom van painter for a van
conversion company. Then I tried commercial art, for which I had no flair,
following it as a social work with United Cerebral Palsy of Broward County. The
beauty of Tallahassee wooed me away but offered little employment to replace the
excellent job left in Fort Lauderdale, especially since OU had just beat FSU in
the Orange Bowl (1980) the week before and the only item of interest on my
resume was my degree from the "football powerhouse" that beat the local
Seminoles.
I found employment building stain glass windows; what a dream come true; light, color and a paycheck combined! Thereafter, I spent a decade as a self-employed entrepreneuse with my own sign company. Then, having decided to return to school in paralegal studies (in pursuit of a paycheck with fringe benefits), I worked part-time for the Palm Beach Post, a great experience with talented people. After completing my studies, I began a seven-year stint working for the Leon County Supervisor of Elections as Outreach Program Coordinator. Today, I return to that arena during election periods while following my painting muse as my full-time occupation.
In addition to painting, I teach several classes of yoga a week and am
certified by the Yoga Alliance as a hatha yoga instructor. My yoga practice
further enriches me and my painting , as does my husband, dog, cats and wooded
homestead off an old, dirt road.
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