The 2024 Annual National Open Juried Exhibition runs from September 30 through November 22
Patricia Louise Corbett
Featured Artist Working in Oils
As an artist, I am emboldened to recreate the beauty of the earth as I see it. There is something thrilling about saturating a brush with paint to create an exciting composition of a subject matter that has touched the very core of my being. For example, when I first moved to Connecticut and was stuck in a major snowstorm while driving on the Merritt Parkway. We were literally held captive as big, white, puffy, fluffy snowflakes nonchalantly descended from the heavens above. It was so peaceful. That winter fantasia has played a unique role in launching my art career. The oh so lovely trees that cast their unique imprint on this incredible parkway are now forever rendered on canvas because of that one moment in time. The Merritt Parkway series is a work in progress along with its amazing bridges built right after the depression in the 1930s.
I find the New England landscape to be irresistible with its phantasmagoric winter, light-hearted spring, summer en plein air days and brilliant, colorful autumn scenes. The more I paint, the more grateful I am to be able to have such a special opportunity to express how I feel about these landscapes!
I was born and raised in California, and therefore naturally drawn to the unique light and color of the west!
The sense I have of this part of the earth lives deep within my life experience. Then, there is the tropical atmosphere of Puerto Rico where I often escape to in the winter months. This island has the most beautiful skies I have ever seen, and you can’t imagine so many different shades of green could possibly exist. But they do in this tropical paradise where the swimming is divine!
Finally, having the opportunity to paint abroad, with family living in Paris, France and also painting in workshops in Italy and taking a 2-month art residency in the countryside, just about says it all! It can’t get much better than that in the autumn of my life! Those early years were all about singing and finding my “own voice.” Now, in art I discovered I had to find my “own voice” all over!
Both art forms have much in common and it brings great pleasure to experience that fusion while painting. My voice teacher used to say, “Paint me a picture!” Now, my art mentor says, “Make the painting sing!” They must be forever in a dance with each other!!