HALCYON DAYS Painting

Terri Dilling is inspired by the natural world, creating abstract paintings and cyanotypes. See her COLLECTIONS for thematic groupings of work. She also accepts some commission work. "I am inspired by the beauty and complexity of the natural world, making reference to the landscape around me, and also an emotional landscape within. I am interested in using gestural marks and color relationships to express a mood or feeling. I want to create a calming visual space that also has elements of energy and contrast. For me, this is a way to find balance. The paintings are predominantly acrylic paint with additional drawing materials like charcoal and pigment crayon. As I paint intuitively, some elements get covered over while others are pulled forward, and the finished painting contains a rich, layered history. My artistic lineage comes from Abstract Expressionism, especially its focus on conveying emotion with bold, spontaneous marks. I also relate to the softness of Impressionism, with lyrical landscapes full of color and light. I combine these things through my own visual vocabulary to give the work a contemporary context, dealing with the duality of interior and exterior realms."