There has been a shift to all-white rooms in interior decorating in recent years. One of the major advantages to this trend is that white creates a perfect backdrop for art with a big dose of color, which is also a great way to add some interest to a monochromatic room. Listed below are some of our favorite artists that use a wide variety of bright colors in different ways throughout their art. Click the images for a better view, and contact us if you want to see any of these lovely pieces in person.
Michael Banks
Michael is deeply creative, with experimentation and resourcefulness always integral parts of his process. His painting of disparate imagery on salvaged boards, using acrylic & enamel with an over-painting of turpentine and tar all add to the intrigue.
Susan Easton Burns
“Spontaneity and intuition are the two most important concepts I try to convey in my art. The spontaneous underpainting gives way to an image that appears intuitively. The nature of paint is messy and I like to acknowledge that. This is a reminder that in nature, order comes from chaos.
I choose to paint nature because I am a part of nature. We humans are much like animals. The main difference is that animals have no fear of the future. They live their lives with great awareness and intuition.” - Susan Easton Burns
Joey Clay
During extensive travel, Joey found himself frequently drawn to Hawaii, a place he still considers a second home. He was particularly attracted to the art scene on Maui. On one of his trips there he found what would ultimately be his main inspiration to become a painter through the work of artist Gil Bruvel. It was not just the work itself that inspired him but also Gil's philosophy of having unlimited freedom from reality in his paintings. Joey had always been attracted to realism, but the combination of realism and fantasy became the direction that his work has taken.
Kathy Cousart
“Once upon a time that little girl mesmerized by color and texture and design stored up all those bits of magic until she could say something really special with paint. Moving frequently as a Minister’s child found me holding onto rich traditions that I loved along the way but always willing to weave in new experiences. I find that holds true with my paintings today as I integrate rich traditional subject matter with a fresh contemporary look that has an abstract edge to it.
My work has recently been described as having a “beautiful thread of softness and grace.” I strive daily to live deeply connected to Love through Peace and Grace. My wish is that from my paintings people receive Peace and Grace through the Love that I painted them with.” -Kathy Cousart
Miranda Herrick
Herrick’s drawings tend to be very structured geometric patterns. These drawings begin with penciled grid lines and grow out with repetitive, pen-and-ink line work which is done freehand. The process is meditative in nature.
Subdividing the space on a sheet of paper with pen marks has evolved into recycling post consumer aluminum cans to fill in blocks of color on a wooden panel. The shift in materials allows Herrick to create larger designs and gives the shapes and colors a subtext. A careful observer can discover what product these aluminum cans carried before they were re-purposed. A thoughtful environmentalist might be made uncomfortable anew with the evidence of accumulation in the repetition of the pieces.
Hannah Lane
Galvanized by the marbled papers in Florence, Italy, Lane began collecting and working with papers in 2012. Not long after, she began pigmenting Japanese and patterned papers with ink to further transform them before layering with pastels and acrylic paint. The mystery and exposure in the materials create a process that is just as gratifying as the finished piece. Intent to take risks, Lane pushes the boundaries of mixed media past the familiar. She continues to work with common forms and figures while breaking open her creative vocabulary.
Andrew Portwood
"My pictures are personal statements rendered through a dialogue between materials, echoes of my own personal experience, and the emotions connected to those experiences.
Working from memories and the mind's eye, dreams and emotions inspire my processes and provide a basis for portraits, figures and landscapes.
I think that ultimately, I paint to please myself. Painting, for me, is a means by which I find personal peace and self-actualization. Painting is a therapeutic vehicle by which one's own stories can be told." -Andrew Portwood
Brad Robertson
In the beginning, he painted trees and lakes. Over years in college, due to a lack of interest in structure and order, Brad made many less than successful attempts to be an architect, industrial designer, and graphic artist. Then an art professor discovered his ability to work with color, which sets the tone for his paintings, and texture, which creates depth in his work. The professor worked with Brad for several years and told him that he was never to paint a tree again, or at least not one easily recognized by a casual observer. From that point, Brad has spent nearly 10 years working to find innovative ways to combine these elements in his work. It has been and he hopes it will remain a rewarding challenge. When people look at his work and are able to define it in their own terms, Brad feels like the painting has accomplished his purpose.
B Lucy Stevens
B. Lucy Stevens is an internationally recognized mixed-media artist living in Providence, Rhode Island. Lucy paints intuitively, and her work is vibrant and expressionistic as daily life is imagined in a brilliant cacophony of color and pattern with deeply affecting results. She is inspired by primitive and outsider art and her far-flung travels, from South America, to Indonesia to the South of France, where she lived for a year on a flower farm.
“Writing used to be my way of expressing myself — I was a newspaper reporter, a fiction writer, a college professor– but then words became like dough that stuck to my fingers. So now I paint and draw and make things, stuff I used to do as a kid. Like I’ve come back to myself. My paintings are everything I think and feel and witness, everything I find funny and sad and absurd. They are my offering of myself to the world.” -B Lucy Stevens
Toni Swarthout
Painting from her studio in Nashville, Swarthout explores her work by removing judgment from the creative process and embracing the fluid nature of reacting to paint in the natural ways inside and outside of the studio.
An avid hiker and outdoors person, attending college in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, Toni found her love of painting through her close connection with nature. She began her art education by attending various institutions and workshops and has studied under Anton Weiss. Swarthout's works are collected by a wide range of businesses and private collectors throughout the United States.
If you’re interested in adding some bold color to your decor, come by the gallery to see your favorite works in person.