"Layered Visions"
Jamie Thompson
"Growing up in rural Connecticut afforded Roy plenty of time 'to fantasize and dream,' she says. Her childhood realm of woods and fields provided her with opportunity to exercise her imagination and sparked her wanderlust. Watching planes overhead, Roy would daydream about their exotic destinations. 'I very much wanted to see the world,' she recalls. This, as well as her mother’s influence, set Roy on the path to becoming an artist. She began her career as a printmaker, with solo exhibitions in far-flung destinations that as a child she could only imagine, like Paris, Tokyo, and Rome. 'After 30 successful years of that, I wanted to focus more on texture and melding of colors and less on the mechanical aspects of printmaking, so I turned to painting,' says Roy. Lately, she prefers to keep her options open when beginning a painting, setting out with no definite plan in mind. “I lay down color, then more color; I scrape away to reveal new color that was hiding,” says Roy. 'The boundaries are totally open and I can go anywhere. There is a wonderful feeling of freedom.' Her adventurous, curious spirit allows her to access a world of possibilities. 'My main inspiration is a desire to transport myself to someplace else,' she says."
"Ladder Store" Acrylic on canvas
Image 30" x 30" |
With "Ladder Store," Roy transports herself—and viewers—to Morocco. Roy describes her memory of the raw beauty of the scene that inspired the piece: 'Down this dirt lane was a place selling ladders made out of scavenged wood, beautifully crooked and uneven.' She does not work from photos, preferring to convey emotion through her memories of a particular place or event. 'There was no sea beyond, no tanker moving along the horizon,” she explains. 'And the ladders were probably bare wood, but somehow the color moved in. I like to tell a story not the way it happened, but the way I remember it.' Layers of pigment and small details, such as the scrollwork on the wall, evoke the textures of Morocco, establishing a sense of place. The bright-hued ladders stand out from the more subdued tones of the background, their strong forms anchoring the composition."
February, 2016
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