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I like to paint where the spaces are open, the skies are vast and where that special light suffuses the landscape, as it does on the plains of the Southwest and here at Lands End. I explore what I feel is the essence of a place or event- that dimension of life which I believe we all feel in our own way- and I work to express that experience through my paintings.
The process of painting stimulates an energy and sense of freedom in me. It becomes a conversation between the artist and canvas, in which ideas introduce themselves, questions arise, tensions grow, and the resolution, when it comes, is unanticipated. Color, viewed as a gift from nature or color as it comes from a tube of paint, inspires me to work. I want to explore, to search for new effects and to experience the sensations they produce. To bring about movement across a canvas by the interplay of color, to make delicately modulated transitions, to use clearly contrasted harmonies of hue- these a re challenges that draw me to my easel. In this sense I am a colorist.
The traditions introduced by the Great Masters and the time spent wit h their works at museums have always given fresh incentives to my own creative effort. I've benefited greatly from the wise counsel, life example and work of Provincetown painters Henry Hensche and Haynes Ownby, and Robert (Bobby) Cardinal's encouragement, teaching and stern work ethic have been invaluable to me.
Academic art study has been with Wolf Kahn at the Santa Fe Institute of Fine Arts' Master Class (a most important step for me); Richard Goetz of the Art Students League; and Gregory Lysun at SUNY Purchase, New York.
Pat Broderick MacDonnell
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