Sandi Donnelly
Living Out Loud, Encaustic on panel
“There are only two mistakes one can make along the road to truth…not going all the way and not starting.” ~ Buddha
In my paintings, I am exploring what is hidden…what lies beneath the surface…what is underneath the underneath. On the surface things may appear one way i.e. calm/serene/joyful and can be an entirely different reality i.e. chaos/confusion/disorder underneath. It is in the scraping that the painting begins to reveal itself; the excavation begins like an archeologist digging for answers. This process takes time like a quiet meditation.
What inspires me is searching for the balance, equipoise between the opposites. For this is life, being able to allow space for the joy and the sadness, the fear and the courage, the pain and the healing.
Several of the pieces in this show are from a project entitled Fluxus involving 7 artists from around the country working in all different types of media. We were encouraged to explore something completely different from our usual way of working. I chose to make suminagashi prints for the spontaneous randomness of the patterns. Each print was enhanced with encaustic, pigment sticks, collage and pan pastel. Most were printed on a polyester microfiber called encaustiflex. I also printed on Bristol board.
~ Sandi Donnelly
