Introspective Art

My artistic philosophy is my life philosophy: "Here's the universe. Now figure out what to do!" And what I have figured out to do is to explore and discover artistic processes by which I can bring mental states and emotional experiences into the world. My process is intuitive and experimental. Over and over in my almost thirty years of artistic expression I have stumbled across different mediums that have led me to where I am now.

I began my explorations with traditional means paint, canvas and brushes, as I was trained in a traditional manner at the American Academy of Art in Chicago. I moved on in studies at Southern Illinois University, where I got my degree, to working with fabrics and handwork techniques such as quilting and wearable art. In the 1980’s I exhibited this work successfully at fashion shows at Chicago's legendary nightclub, The Limelight, and at Stanley Korshak and Marshall Field's Couture.

Later, after visiting Italy and France, I did a series of works inspired by the extraordinary paintings I saw in the museums there, including Renaissance masterpieces such as Raphael's portraits of the Doni husband and wife in the Pitti Palace and Botticelli's paintings at the Uffizi. In Paris, works by Impressionists such as Monet and Post-Impressionists such as Van Gogh left a lasting impression, along with the exuberant, colorful sculpture by contemporary artist Niki de Saint Phalle I discovered at the Pompidou.

Always moving on to explore new mediums, after the birth of my child in 1997 I took up acrylic painting, leaving behind the time-consuming work of applying paint with brushes and taking up a new technique of dripping the paint onto either canvas or Plexiglas. My dripping technique, however, is not a conventional one. The drips and splatters of artists like Jackson Pollock and Sam Francis form an art historical background to my work, but my technique involves paint mediums and finishes that I customize to create the distinctive drips of my works.

More recently this physical work has been augmented by digital explorations that allow me to discover images within abstract forms. By scanning my drip paintings, and using graphic design software that allows one to mirror and flip the image, new patterns and forms emerge.

I am greatly humbled and invigorated that these new images are offered by the techniques that create my drip paintings. This long journey had led me to Chinese dragons, mythical creatures and especially...warriors!

Cathy Bruni Norris