Evident in each restless, vibrant composition is Amy Donaldson’s strong sense of color and feeling for space and light, which are achieved by her fusion of crushed, powdered natural pigments with oil paint that is applied in a freely expressive manner. Using tools other than traditional brushes she attacks the surface of the canvas in a direct approach that is additive and subtractive—a process one may associate with sculpture as much as with painting. She lays down luscious, pliant marks across the surface, then scrapes areas of the composition back, then vigorously adds and scrapes again to achieve her goal. Her range of expression comprises the appearance of timeworn erosion of an aging city to the seemingly endless atmospheric depth cloaking a horizon in a hazy light. Sometimes elements of graffiti appear, their looping letters cutting through the roughly layered surface like traces of humanity on aging city walls or an ecstatic cry to the heavens splitting the sky.

Donaldson has attained a signature style that embodies both a sense of immediacy and freshness. One of her favorite subjects is Florida, and the paintings of her home state seem to burst with joy and the bright light of a sparkling Atlantic morning. Then, there are those works cloaked in a more moody and intimate softness of an indefinable depth and locale, which, like much of Donaldson’s oeuvre, have an overall atmosphere that recalls European Romanticism and Impressionism.

A native of Jacksonville Beach, Florida, Amy Donaldson has participated in Art Basel Miami, Atlanta’s National Juried Exhibitions, Museum of Contemporary Art Jacksonville, 6 x 6 Project New York. Her works are in numerous private and public collections. She currently lives and works in northern California.

Cynthia Weiss is an award-winning studio and public artist, and arts educator. Cynthia received her MFA in Painting from the University of Illinois at Chicago and has exhibited studio work at Hyde Park Art Center, Ukrainian Institute of Modern Art and other galleries throughout Chicago. She fabricates public artwork in mosaics and laser-cut metal that transforms neglected spaces into beloved local landmarks in Edgewater, Pilsen, and other Chicago neighborhoods. She often works in collaboration, drawing images from the ideas and hopes of community members. She is a board member and artist with the Chicago Public Art Group, and she co-leads arts and literacy workshops with Habla: The Center for Language and Culture, in Merida, Mexico.

In her studio work Cynthia uses an X-acto knife to hand cut painted paper and Tyvek, building exquisite patterns of negative and positive shapes. She is inspired by creative, adaptive solutions to address climate change, and models of interdependence and resilience. Through the interplay of light and shadow, she creates poetic installations that speak to the fragility of ecosystems at risk, and the need for sanctuary and mutual aid in the human and natural world.

Cynthia would like to thank the Ragdale Foundation for the time and space to create work for this exhibition.