LOUISA MCELWAIN | oil of joy

Santa Fe, NM

06 August 5 – 8 pm | opening reception friday evening through August 30 A classically trained artist with roots firmly planted in the New York School of Abstract Expressionism, McElwain paints with knives and masonry trowels, working quickly to capture an image before the light fades or the clouds drift past. Inspired by the color theory of Joseph Albers and a masters workshop with Wolf Kahn, it was at the Nera Simi drawing studio in Florence, Italy, in 1973 where McElwain says she learned to see by focusing on the same figure drawing for two weeks. For McElwain, paint is not subordinate to the motif. She often incorporates bits of stone, glass, plants, and even insects into the paint as she works. "There is a powerful feeling that surges up from the earth and through me as I paint," she says. "I am vulnerable to the powerful forces of wind and light and bugs. There is a rhythm to nature, a measured meter and tempo, the speed the clouds move in the sky, and the way the shadows shift. I'm walking a line, balancing between allowing the painting to exist for its own sake and expressing something true about my experience of nature.” Louisa McElwain | private view on thursday 05 august | by invitation only