“Balancing Act”
Paintings by Nancy Neill
Painting, for me, is a journey that comes from my life experiences. The work in this exhibition is from a period in my life of trying to find a sense of balance after the first year of the pandemic.
These paintings reveal contrasting elements and show the struggle to find the unity between them. Most paintings have strong lights and darks, and sometimes color, and contain elements of drawing and painting. The challenge is to make these competing elements work together in a composition. I first focus on drawing and then include various shapes and colors and then try to integrate the various passages into some type of harmony. This body of work also includes a number of mixed media pieces in addition to paintings. The drawing is similar in both types of work with lines, circles and other floating marks perhaps suggesting a happier time and sense of freedom. The black and white/beige shapes speak to the contrasts in life and the way they effect our lives.
There is a lot of history and texture in the work. The surface shows the remnants of constant reworking – drawing first and then painting over that and drawing more and painting again. Each painting has shapes added and subtracted over and over again. This goes on until a sense of balance is achieved. I think of my work as passionate and joyful and full of movement.
