Her Night

"Her Night"  2013
11 x 14"
acrylic, mixed media collage on masonite

I actually finished work on this a year ago, along with a couple other mixed media collages on masonite I was working on simultaneously, before stopping to paint a few acrylics on paper. Collaging matboard and magazine scraps onto my paintings began many years ago, and is a process I always seem to come back to- using found element always creates a surprise in results I don't achieve in the same way when drawing or painting with convention media. The female in tight gold dress was the catalyst for the implied narrative, finding the houses at sunset and extravagant chandelier scraps thereafter to furnish the setting. Her hipshot stance frames the doorway, confidently announcing the evening to come belongs to her.

This collage won the Bruce Zuckerman Memorial juror's cash award at last weekend's Size Matters Holiday Show at Norton's Fine Art on Big Bend. Though I've sold a lot of paintings, I honestly can't remember the last time I won an award for my work, so that was an unexpected honor. With so many artist's pieces on the wall, it felt special to be singled out for "Her Night". The upswing in my 9 to 5 career and other creative endeavors had taken a great deal of attention away form my painting in the last year, but this humble accomplishment made me feel I should perhaps get back to exploring that. A nice crowd of art lovers in the gallery on that unseasonably cold November evening, and I enjoyed meeting new people to talk about art with.

"Her Night" is displayed for sale until Jan. 11th, so call Mary at Norton's Fine Art if you need the perfect holiday gift for that diva in your life  :)
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