Flower Paintings

To see image of some flower paintings, three of which are on exhibit at Latham Watkins:
click on the title of this post or go to this link:
http://www.natashart.com/concordia.html

The first one, a self portrait with flower, the second one, a large painting with yellow background, and the last one, a smaller size painting, are the ones exhibited at Latham Watkins.

All flower paintings in the show are oil and sand on canvas or linen. Some are also oil paintings with other media, such as collage elements.

Other Images of Works in the Exhibition

All three, media: charcoal, ink, pastel crayon, pencil and conte crayon on paper

Solo Exhibition at Latham Watkins!

Inner Landscapes and Flower Portraits: Sept. through December 2008
on view at Latham Watkins lawfirm.
The show consists of 43 works: 23 framed works on paper and 20 works on canvas, drawings, paintings and collages. All work is for sale.

Artist Statement for the Exhibition:

When I began my journey as an artist at age 19, drawing was my first love,
my salvation, a meditation. Through drawing I came to painting, first using
paper as my surface, then moving to canvas. The Flower Paintings series is
an exploration--of oil paint and the enjoyment and constant challenges of
that medium, and of portraiture, and the relationship between portraits and time, images of impermanence. The flowers posed for me in all phases of life from freshly cut to dried up and dead.

The Inner Landscapes are self-portraits, landscapes of my psyche, and a
return to what inspired me about drawing. These inner landscape drawings and paintings/collages have gone through three phases, and continue to evolve. The more I work on them, the more I find revealed about the effects of the city of New York on my self, my psyche, my identity. Layering these “cities” of my
imagination, building and painting and drawing on top of old discarded
images, pieces of text--all of this reflects my relationship with my native
city, including, most recently, the effect of living a few blocks from the
World Trade center until 9/11/01 and returning to live there again as this
American ruin goes through its many phases towards rebuilding. Metaphorically, the narrative of my inner life is intertwined with the life of the city of New York as I have known it. I came upon my inner landscapes through a process of exploring line, shape and color and I am constantly surprised by what forms from my process. The meaning of drawing for me is to travel in uncharted territories and
continue, sometimes doubling back and adding to old memories, like an old
temple ruin, where new grass and flowers grow through and among broken
pieces of a building.

(A note on dating works: As I worked on the Inner Landscape series, stopping and starting pieces, using old pieces on top of new ones, writing the date each time I went back to a piece became a kind of ritual and integrally connected to the themes I work with. As I do not usually title my works, the dates become a part of the “Untitled”, a further way of categorizing and describing my process.)

Most recent journal drawings...

And now we end this mid May 2008 studio visit with some more journal drawings.

My Current Journal...

This is the cover of the one I carry around now, begun recently.

Journal Drawings

I think of journal drawings as a place to let myself wander around and see where I am led by the process and the materials. Recent materials used in my journals are: pencil, pens in metallic and bright colors, ballpoint pen, collage, especially writing wripped from various sources, ordinary office supplies like post its, memos, white out and most exciting-- staples!

This first image is from my last journal, drawing started on April 8. Then I added elements and finished it on April 23...

Inner Landscape: First Painting with Drawing

This painting/collage is a work in progress, still unfinished. I started it with the intention of making a self-portrait as I do every year on my birthday and tried to put my baby in the picture as well. When I decided it was not working, I did my birthday self-portrait on a smaller canvas and reworked this canvas to be another collage inner landscape. I left it for at least a month and then, after working on many of the new drawings shown here where I was using the stapler and putting together two or three drawings and then turning them into one, one day, I think it was April 21, I had a very special moment, one of those exciting moments during a series that I remember as a turning point. I suddenly had the impulse to take one of the new layered drawings and staple it onto the canvas that I still had not finished. I got very excited about this new development and then my big stapler stopped working, so I left it to continue later. I have not yet worked more on this peice but I see it as yet another layering in the evolution of this Inner Landscape series. I will write about my observations about the latest evolutions in the next post...
Size of canvas: 12 inches by 36 inches

Inner Landscape, fifth drawing

Size: 8 3/4 by 22 inches

Inner Landscape, fourth drawing

The first image is a detail of the drawing, and the second image is the full drawing, made up of two pieces of paper. They started as two separate drawings and were later put together to make one drawing...

Size: 8 3/4 inches by 22 inches

Inner Landscape Series, Third Drawing

Inner Landscape Series, Second Drawing

New Work: Inner Landscape Series, First drawing

These are the most recent images of my "Inner Landscape Series" which have developped and changed over the past months. These images are of one drawing, top and then three images of details from the drawing. Mixed media, ink and paint, pencil and pastel, staples and collage on paper. Size: about 8.5 inches high by 22 inches wide.