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Sue Noel

The Arts Center Exhibitions:

• 'Portals,' Winter Show & Silent Auction, 2011

Artist's Statement, 'Cat's Portal:'

Art has been a strong side interest all my life.  I have experimented with various media including silk screen printing, tole painting, drawing with pastels, sketching with markers and also designing wooden toys. For the past few years I have been painting with acrylics, often plein air.

For me, painting is a process of sketching, trying various ideas, and then iterating between sketching and painting till I get the look that I want. I often think that I should be able to “see” the final result in my head right at the start. But, it doesn’t work that way. Rather, the painting unfolds with the doing, and the result is often a bit of a surprise when I finally convince myself to “declare” it finished. Like many artists, I struggle with when to stop!

I enjoy taking common objects, like a washing machine, a tea pot or a scraggly tree, and working them into compositions with interesting designs, colors and textures.

“Cat’s Portal,” for instance, began with multiple marker sketches where I tried to portray the idea of a powerful, all seeing, cat’s eye, depicting the cat’s portal to the world. To build up the color and dimensional aspect of the stylized cat face, I applied thick molding paste, and topped it with a series of glazes. I find it fascinating to watch how each glaze layer adds more depth, life and character to the painting.