The Start o' My Art

I just thought I'd post these older works. The "Mom and me" painting is actually my first real painting, the one that made me first consider attempting art as a career in the first place. The "Flower and the Snake" and "The Glass Madonna" are both from my first painting class and are some of my more successful experimental pieces.

Mom and me (2006), Acrylic on canvas, 20x14 inches, received the Congressional Art Award for this one

The Flower and the Snake (2007), Acrylic hard-edge, displayed in the 2008 Spring edition of UNC's literary arts magazine The Cellar Door

This piece is supposed to be an abstracted representation of the Garden of Eden. My choice of color was deliberate, with red representing something bad, temptation, pride, lust etc. and green representing innocence, nature, and goodness. The flower represents woman, so I made it green on the inside, but its exterior is red, implying that woman is unfairly maligned as she is good at heart and only perceived to be bad. The snake and the apples are represented as temptation, seeming to be good (green exteriors), but that is deceptive as they are actually bad (so they are red on the inside). I like working with trees, symbolism, and myth and this was the first piece in which I did those things.

The Glass Madonna (2007), Acrylic base with Oil Glazes, displayed in the Spring 2008 edition of The Cellar Door, 3ird place in the Cellar Door for images in general (including photography) and 2nd in painting