Catherine Flynn - Photography & Pastel

"​In 2011, I embarked on a photography project to reconnect with photography and art following an unexpected career change. For all but eleven days in 2011, I shot photos of the trees and landscapes of Washington Park in Springfield. I learned anew to see the natural forms around me.
 
Art opens my mind. It pushes me to look at the world with attention; to see the relationships between elements; between nature and people; between land and sky; between light and dark; between large shapes and fine detail.
 
Those photos I took in 2011 served as reference material for paintings when I took up pastels, at the suggestion of Sheri Ramsey. I’d never used pastels before. But I did have an intensive studio art education at the Maryland Art Institute. Pastels reawakened by love of drawing and color.
 
Currently I’m attracted to the landscape as a way to express relationships and change: a road fading away, a fence that defines a field, buildings that have settled into the earth, places of reflection, and traces of people past.
 
The process of creating art allows me to step out of myself. From sketch, to underpainting, through the build up of color and form, I can become one with the subject and thoroughly in the moment.
 
In my paintings, I seek to describe the emotional or contextual reaction I have to the landscape and natural forms, to find those distinctive details that help tell a story and to share those impressions with those who view my paintings. I feel my paintings are successful if the subject I paint becomes a place in my memory and opens a satisfying emotional connection for the viewer."