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Art Exhibition: "Elements and Seasons" Nina Thomson (3/12 - 4/5)
I live and work on the Garden Highway (a levy of the Sacramento River) and am inspired by what I see around me every day. I work to paint in a way that changes how others see the air, the light, the fog, the seasons, the ocean, the plates, the hills and fields. I see the earth, its elements, its seasons, its beauty, its blemishes. I see the roads, telephone polls, signs, gates, fences and structures placed on the land by man both as evidence of man’s visiting on the land and as providing architectural geometry to the landscape.
Ashland Tree
“The true end of art is not to imitate a fixed material condition, but to represent a living motion. The intelligence to be conveyed by it is not of an outer fact, but of an inner life.” George Innes (1825 – 1894)
My first artistic success came through the medium of dry/soft pastel, and it remains my favorite way to paint. I love the immediacy of pastel. You can pick up a stick and make a mark and keep on walking. Or you can stay for as long as you like. I love the colors, the textures, the feeling of using my arm as the brush to manipulate the sticks of pure pigment. I also work in oil with both a pallet knife and, more recently, with brushes. Sometimes there are happy accidents where the paint does its paint thing, when I feel the paint is trying to teach me about itself.
More recently I have been working with found objects, especially objects discarded in the nearby fields, and with digital images. There is so much to do, so much to learn, so many materials and combinations. Art is difficult, a continuing learning experience, but it’s just art. No lives are at stake, so I can paint and experiment boldly and with joy and have fun. I love it!
“The wonder of the world, the beauty and power, the shape of things, their colours, lights and shades; these I saw. Look ye also while life lasts.” Tombstone in Cumberland, England.