Jo Ann does mainly representational paintings with pastels being her preferred media. Earlier in life she studied studio art and art history at SUNY New Paltz, had a side business in graphic arts and web design but like so many, she put aside a serious pursuit of fine arts until after her retirement. In the past three years, she began studies with award winning pastel artist Gayle Clark Fedigan at the Desmond Campus and then Wallkill River School of Arts and exhibits regularly through the Goshen Art League, finally realizing her goals in art that began long ago in her youth.

 

Artists Statement

I consider myself a realist artist and love bringing motifs from the natural world to life. I grew up in a rural area with lots of farms and gardens and countryside landscape. My father’s flower and vegetable gardens probably figure into my love of flowers and other garden fruits. My sister bought me my first set of pastels and a book of colored plates of paintings from the Met and did much to foster my art development. Those early experiences remain enbedded in my mind and so I continue to draw inspiration from my surroundings  (Hudson River and Downing Park) and love creating still lives from florals and fruits of the earth.  I especially enjoy studying and learning from 19th century art such as portraits of John Singer Seargant and florals of Fantin Latour and Edouard Manet. 

I find joy in creating representational pastels. First visually de-constructing the subject, then recreating its basic shapes and dynamics, adding color and tone and then bringing it to life with reflective light fills me with an immense sense of satisfaction. I love a painterly realism, but am still working on achieving that. I tend to paint that which gives me pleasure or inspires awe or is just simply beautiful. How sunlight affects an object and the shadows it casts, or the warmth or coolness of a color changing as light falls on it’s surface or how a living form connects to its environment are some reasons to catch my eye as subject matter. What I paint  varies, ranging from still lifes and florals, to landscapes, to animals, to portraiture.
 
I paint what I like and hope that others find pleasure in it