LUMINOUS SKIES TO ABSTRACT

Published on by judelobe
As Spring Arrives

Lolette Guthrie is a land­scape painter who works most­ly from mem­o­ry. “Nature is the exter­nal sub­stance in my work; nuance of col­or that evokes an emo­tion is the inte­ri­or sub­stance. While I some­times work in pas­tels, I am pri­mar­i­ly an oil painter.  Regard­less of the medi­um, how­ev­er, res­o­nant col­or is the core of my process.  I love to jux­ta­pose lumi­nous pas­sages of sat­u­rat­ed col­or with more mut­ed tones com­bin­ing lay­ers of opaque col­or with trans­par­ent glazes. I find that by vary­ing the thick­ness of the paint and apply­ing many lay­ers of glaze I can achieve a sense of lumi­nos­i­ty and hope­ful­ly an aware­ness of the light in the air, some­thing I am eter­nal­ly try­ing to cap­ture.”

“At times my work is pared down rep­re­sen­ta­tion; at times it is abstract.  Regard­less of the genre, each piece begins with a loose idea that evolves grad­u­al­ly and intu­itive­ly. At some point I always lose myself in the process. Then the paint­ing takes on a life of its own and I become aware that the can­vas that is telling me what to do.”
As The Sun Shines Through

Raised in a house­hold filled with art, I have been paint­ing for as long as I can remem­ber. My father was a fine artist and com­mer­cial illus­tra­tor and my ear­li­est mem­o­ries are of stand­ing beside him at his easel watch­ing him work and ask­ing ques­tions, and of “work­ing” near him. He often asked for my advice, seemed to take what­ev­er I had to say seri­ous­ly and urged me to explore my own artis­tic inter­ests, how­ev­er, he active­ly dis­cour­aged me from pur­su­ing art as a career. I, there­fore, majored in psy­chol­o­gy and art his­to­ry in col­lege and worked for many years as an ele­men­tary school teacher but I nev­er stopped draw­ing and paint­ing. Even­tu­al­ly, I returned to school to study art and received a BS in draw­ing and paint­ing from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Wis­con­sin in 1984.

Pri­or to mov­ing to North Car­oli­na in 2004, I exhib­it­ed wide­ly in both juried and invi­ta­tion­al exhi­bi­tions in Wis­con­sin, Wash­ing­ton, DC, Vir­ginia, Mary­land and Geor­gia includ­ing such pres­ti­gious gal­leries as the Uni­ver­si­ty of Wis­con­sin, The Mil­wau­kee Muse­um of Art’s Bradley Gallery, the Car­di­nal Gallery of Art, Annapo­lis, MD and the Goodyear Cot­tage Art Gallery, Jekyll Island, GA. I was also Artist in Res­i­dence at Hunt­ley Mead­ows Park in Alexan­dria, Vir­ginia for 8 years where I was for­tu­nate to have had sev­er­al solo shows.