Statement:
My Surroundings –
Two great passions that intersect and inform my work, are that of an artist and that of a gardener. As a seasoned painter I draw from the surrounding landscape, buildings and foliage of rural Vermont, often concocting an abstracted vision with a palette that pleases my sensibilities.
Gardening’s, natural cycle of growth, decay and impermanence motivates me in my studio. The smell of the soil, the work, the bounty are all transcendental moments. They come to life on paper surfaces as I use a dried fern to print with, a bunch of stems to paint textures and cut forms that mimic the plants.
Using an array of media including acrylic, oil, encaustic, printed papers, markers and pigment sticks I am able to achieve a textural layered surface allowing the complexity imagined to become a compositional whole. The combination of memories and visual ephemera combine in order to convey a single expression of beauty, and the continuity of life on earth.
Bio:
Dona Mara Friedman is a painter with a 50 year continued exploration in two dimensional space and surface. Her paintings are infused with an abstracted vision containing an individual use of color, line and texture, influenced by her personal connection to her Vermont surroundings. Awareness of the weathered wooden barns in her immediate area became an interest as she views them as noble pieces of Americana.The work suggests an ambiguity, without absolute representation, creating an abstracted simplicity. A continued experimentation of materials has led to the use of encaustic, cold wax and mixed media.
She exhibits regularity in the regional Northeast galleries and museums, is included in numerous private collections throughout the U.S.A .and is in the permanent collection of the Museum of Encaustic Art in New Mexico.
Website: donamarafriedman.com