BETTY PARNELL

“I love color. I am moved and transfixed by COLOR.

When I paint I see what my eyes feel. I see colors, and how one leans on another for strength and definition.

My paintings begin with a blank canvas or wood panel. Gestural markings appear and energy infuses the process. Squiggles, slashes, drips, swooshes, mark making, some thin and fine, some heavy, thick and dark, begin to appear. I layer acrylic paint, pastels, watercolors, and acrylic ink, layer some more, scrape, then remove, uncovering an abstract language of colors, textures, and shapes. What the paint reveals determines the outcome.

Within my paintings there is a connection between the applied paint and the immediacy of my ideas. The use of color and the freedom to explore these unknown possibilities with mixed–media ignites passion and inspires me. Painting has become and need the create, to be in a space where active life and physical needs are lost in moments of instinct, paint and tool interacting, sometimes serendipitously, even clashing, creating challenges which force me to push and learn.

My work is an invitation to see and feel. The viewer needs options to experience as I need options to create. Each painting is unique with every stroke, swipe, or drip being its own adventure.”       —Betty Parnell