VICTORIA J POWELL

I’m Victoria, a modern impressionist plein air painter of what I see while the light lasts: Landscapes, Gardenscapes, Waterscapes. I also love to paint still life, jewelry and food, but that could change. A Mother to my creative core, an Escapee from an intermittent career in tax law, I suppose my perspective is uniquely informed by all I’ve seen and done. Since childhood I’ve been told I see things (and think things) others don’t, my bug and my feature alike. Ordinary and mundane shapes and colors just delight me, but I couldn’t quite systematically describe which ones bore, annoy or inspire me. I create paintings for discerning art enthusiasts who trust their own eyes and enjoy their independent connection with art. What I offer is my judgment of a view, what is worthy, to me, for you to see.

Once I walked into a long-established art gallery with my paintings in hand and in the trunk of my car. The owners accepted my entire collection, and told me they had never before in 40 years signed a “walk-on” artist! I’m an art collector myself, and I want my paintings to radiate joy in your personal space and inspire you to return the smile.

INSPIRATION

Influences: My mother’s European family were dealers in 18th & mostly 19th century paintings, so she filled my childhood suburban homes with art that was informed but also deliberately American and personal to her. Her sister, my Aunt Mary, an artist and writer, swore at me in her 80's to make me leave law & finance and paint. My naturalist father took me on woodland treks when I was small, where he collected bird eggs and butterflies, and photographed wildflowers and insects nearly perfectly camouflaged on trees or leaves. How lucky am I they taught me how to look carefully and think for myself?

TECHNIQUES

I paint "in real life" - (known as "plein air" because of the French impressionists who did it first) and I can tell you why if you wish - using acrylics on stretched paper, or acrylics and oils on canvas and boards. Pastels are seductive to me too. The size of a finished piece doesn't matter to me, I'm eager confronting both large canvases and tiny ones, that variety is freshening. If you see me cruising the views of the American Southwest (with my Baja rescue pup Liberty and my hiker man mechanic and chauffeur) in the sturdy white transit bus with Texas plates, please do say hello and talk to me about art. All about it. Commissions accepted sometimes.