This month, In addition to my show at the Moosewood Restaurant being extended for another month,  I have work at the State of the Art Gallery in Ithaca, and at the George Waters Gallery in Elmira,

At the State of the Art Gallery, for the month of October, I am showing one piece which is a memorial to Renisha McBride.

For Renisha McBride oil on canvas, 18×24″

Renisha McBride

On November 2, 2013, Renisha McBride was coming home from a party when she crashed her car and needed help. It was 4:45 AM, and her cell phone was dead, so she went knocking on doors in a Dearborn Heights, Michigan, neighborhood. She banged on the windows and door of Theodore Wafer’s house loudly enough to wake him. He came to the door with his shotgun, and without opening the screen door, shot Renisha dead. He claimed self-defense, he was frightened and thought she was a burglar trying to break into his house. Renisha McBride was only 19 years old. She was an African American young woman. After the initial shocking news, there were the usual media reports trying to show flaws in Renisha’s character. Was she drinking? Had she used drugs? Why was she out and alone so late at night? There were the usual reminders that Michigan was a “Stand your ground” state where it was not a crime to shoot someone if you felt threatened – even if you had no objective grounds for your fear. Then, there was a long silence on the matter. I was beside myself with anger that here was another young black person’s life tragically cut short, and no one cared. There were no protests, no petitions to sign. It seemed as if there would be no justice. This painting springs from my outrage. If Renisha had been white, would she be dead? I once ran out of gas in the middle of the night and knocked on doors looking for help. It never crossed my mind that someone would shoot me.

In this case, it did not take a riot to finally get an indictment. Theodore Wafer was tried, and in August, 2014, was convicted of 2^nd degree murder and sentenced to 17-32 years in prison.

Dyer Ave. (NYC), acrylic on canvas, 20×20

I also have one piece in a group show at the George Waters Gallery in Elmira, NY. It is the last painting from the urban forms series that I started  in 2013, and I think, the most successful in that genre.

Perspectives on Life, Paintings by Diana Ozolins  

Resistance 18×24 acrylic

Through the month of September, 2014, I will have a series of paintings exhibited at the Moosewood Restaurant. This was a great opportunity to show several series that span a number of years. In the Cafe, there will be the most of the environmental disaster and political upheaval series – food for thought, along with information packets about the issues portrayed. In the large dining room, I have enough space to spread out the second Schoodic series, as well as paintings done at the St. Lawrence and some recent plain air paintings done in Ithaca. The following is the artist statement that explains this show. The Moosewood Restaurant is located in Dewitt Mall, corner of Seneca and Cayuga Streets in Ithaca, NY.

Artist Statement

I chose the pieces for this show with a mind towards balancing celebrating the beauty of life in this exquisite world, and keeping a thoughtful perspective on the outrageous violence and destruction that we humans can inflict upon nature and each other.

Fire and Ice 16×20 oil/canvas

Half of these paintings portray political upheaval, natural disaster, and violent acts. I ask myself, how can life go on in a place where at every moment one can anticipate death; where people live in rubble, and have no way of meeting basic human needs for food, water, sanitation, education, freedom of movement and employment. People are fleeing unspeakable conditions, only to die on the way or to crowd into even more horrid conditions. In Ithaca, there are many families in diaspora, bringing with them stories of survival in conditions of war and oppression, having rebuilt their lives here. It seems that the capacity for inflicting misery on fellow human beings is only increasing. We commit thoughtless acts of violence against the natural world as well which endangers the beauty and resources that we take for granted but need so much for our survival and well being. Incredibly resilient creatures, we have a capacity for survival, but we are coming dangerously close to reducing the ability of the earth to sustain us. Do we have the capacity to change our ways? I paint these images to come to terms with the turmoil and despair that the daily news can stir up within me. I display them to keep these issues in the collective consciousness of our community.

Bill & Jack’s Sunset #2 20×27 o/c

Clinging to life with little to no hope is not what life is meant to be. There is so much more possible by way of beauty and joy, music and laughter. The world is rich with resources to fill our basic needs and satisfy our desires. That is why the other half of these paintings celebrates the beauty that abounds in nature. Nature should not just be a balm to sooth our wounds or an elixir to make our spirits strong. We are not by nature weak and wounded creatures. We evolved within a system, though harsh and rigorous at times, that abounds with the resources we need for a beautiful life. Nature provides nourishment not just to grow strong bodies but also to please our palate. It provides not just materials to clothe and house us but to do so with art. We can continue to list the benefits, but it is more important to remind ourselves that we have the responsibility to treat the earth gently, not take more than it has the ability to replenish, and to distribute the resources equitably so that all can benefit.

I hope these paintings can help us think carefully about the way we use the world and whether every interaction with our neighbors and strangers is conducted with dignity and respect. Then, as you dine on the Moosewood’s fine cuisine, I hope you enjoy the beautiful landscapes.

Artist Statement

October 21
Lenore’s Backyard in Newfield
oil on canvas, 12×24″

I paint landscapes and figurative works, both on location from nature, and in my studio from photos. My work is about the paint – oil or acrylic, thick and luscious or thin and subtle, but always with a mind towards color. Working with a palette knife, the subject is broken down into chips and strokes of color, obvious up close, but snapping into focus as a detailed and realistic landscape when viewed from a distance. I start with composition, looking for an intimate landscape where I am close enough to the elements to capture the parts of objects where they intersect. I strive for intensity and a sense of depth and space within the flat surface of the canvas. My subject matter includes traditional pastoral landscapes as well as urban forms, and responses to environmental crises or political events. This show contains the best of my landscape paintings from the past two years.

Plein air painting provides a passionate engagement with paint, capturing a moment by being in the moment, surrounded by nature, and shaping a composition from it. The smaller paintings in this collection are done outside, usually in one session. The palette knife enables me to paint with speed and energy, necessary because I must be done in only two or three hours. The light changes in that amount of time and creates a different scene.

Winter’s End: Sapsucker Reflections
Oil on canvas, 12×12,

When I find a scene that inspires me, I start to rough in the paint, moving around the canvas so that the image takes focus gradually in all parts. At first I work with my largest palette knife, so no detail is possible, and work very thinly, scraping the paint into the surface. I like to lay down at least a sample of my lightest and darkest tones and a bit of my most intense color in order to establish the range. When the canvas is covered the first time, I can evaluate the painting for composition and scale. Almost always some things need to be made bigger, and others eliminated.

This requires scraping off paint, and applying fresh. Sometimes the whole scene can be repositioned. Then I start supplying complexity of color in order to create volume, depth, and light. I might apply two or three layers of paint on top of each other, using a light touch and lots of paint controlling where it sticks and where it slides. The earliest painting in this show was “Winter’s End: Sapsucker Reflections,” painted in March of 2013 at Sapsucker woods. It was the first beautiful day of spring, with a chill still in the air, but brilliant sunshine.

Stream at Uppper Buttermilk, oil on canvas, 14×18″

The most recent is “Upper Buttermilk Stream,” painted on June 27 of this year, which was a hot mosquito slapping day.

The studio is important as a refuge to continue painting during the harsh winter months, and as a place of quiet reflection. The larger paintings on display here are done in the studio, either from photos, small oil sketches, or sometimes just from memory or feeling. As I work on those paintings I try to bring the same energy to them as in the smaller paintings, but these are more complex in their use of paint. I have to scrape them down at the end of each painting session, because texture at that point would interfere with making changes in composition or correcting proportion, scale, or perspective. When I get to the point where I know what I’m doing with the painting, in the final paint sessions, I build up the texture of the canvas as a whole. A painting could take one day or several months.

” Looking East” and “Woods in Pennsylvania” were both done in spurts of creativity and then weeks of observation and reflection. The first was inspired by the sunrise over my backyard in January. Snow was partially melted and I was intrigued

Looking East, oil on canvas, 18×28

by the play of the cool colors of snow and warm colors of dried grasses of winter fields. After breakfast, I started it from memory and feeling. I later used photos to make sure the scale was correct. “Woods in Pennsylvania” was done as a commission using the client’s summer photograph of his favorite place. My task was to imagine the same place with fall foliage. I determined the species of the trees, and researched their fall colors. Both of these paintings were periodically hung in my living room where I could glance at them with detached interest. In this way it gradually became clear what needed to be added or changed.

Woods in Pennsylvania, oil on canvas, 20×30″

Some of these paintings take years before they are resolved. “Plantations Patio” and “Mad River” are two paintings that I started two years ago. Putting a painting away and periodically looking at it with fresh eyes is important to getting a painting right. I continued to see potential in these two, but it took a while to be able to name and fix their flaws. The issue was scale. There were too many objects, and they were not the right size in proportion to each other. They could not fit within the space I was depicting. I removed extraneous elements making some larger, and the paintings came to life.

Plantations Patio, oil on canvas, 12×16″

I live and paint full time in Ithaca, NY. I studied art at Syracuse University, Cortland College, TC3, and afterward under the mentorship of Gillian Pederson Craig and George Dugan. I continue to learn and grow through the collegial relationships and invaluable support of my critique group and my association with fellow artists at the State of the Art Gallery. Another selection of my work will be at the Moosewood Restaurant during September. You can see more of the paintings in this show by by clicking on 2013-2014 at the top of this page.

Mad River, oil on canvas, 12×12″

cleaning frames

Having a show in a gallery requires a lot more than painting. While the paint is drying, we are busy photographing the artwork, preparing digital images, and producing publicity materials such as posters, postcards, rack cards, press releases for newspapers and website, and writing artist statements. And then there’s framing, which includes taking stock of what frames are already in hand, ordering, and biting nails while waiting for them to arrive. It is a time consuming and repetitive chore, but I like it because it puts the finishing touches on the painting. Continue reading

Up Close and Personal

Looking East, oil on canvas, 18×28

During August I will be showing landscape paintings at the State of the Art Gallery in Ithaca. I will be sharing the Gallery with Margy Nelson, and showing work from the past two years. There will be a collection of smaller canvases done outside, mostly familiar scenes from Ithaca and a few from places where I have traveled. I will have some larger works that took a longer period of time. Angel Wing Begonia was painted in my kitchen, looking out onto the front porch where the begonia was growing in a pot. Looking East was started from memory one day after seeing the pattern of shadows and light in my back garden early in the morning. The scenes from Taughannock and the Pennsylvania Woods were started and finished using photographs.

The show will be up July 30 to August 31, with an opening reception on August 1, from 5:00 tp 8:00 pm.