Featured Artist Cynda Valle

Enjoy the fascinating portfolio of Cynda Valle, who tells a story with each of her paintings. See more work from this remarkable artist by visiting her website.

 

 

I imagine the part of my brain that I’m not consciously aware of like a deep dark pool. In it’s deepest darkest shadows, something percolates, creating bubbles… the bubbles rise and pop to the surface of my conscious mind, delivering completely formed images, remembered from my childhood.

 

 

In the way of oldest memories, things get twisted, changed, jumbled. They seem surreal. It’s hard to know what is real and what is imagined or based on a story once told. In my new series (“The Alone Together Family”) these are the images I paint.

 

 

An older series is about the relationship between women and water. I approached the series first from the Western historical idea that women and water are a tragic combination; Ophelia, Lady of Shallot, Sirens of the Sea.

 

 

I then discovered a more feminist perspective that expresses women as Water Beings: mysterious, graceful and the embodiment of water in birth, rebirth and baptism.

 

 

The theme has grown to represent the combination of women and water as ethereal, divine and powerful, capable of carving the landscape and creating miracles of biblical proportions.

 

 

Regardless of the subject matter, the way I paint is always the same. I focus on the idea that light and color are synonymous. I choose techniques and media that make the paintings appear to glow, as if the light source was coming from within the painting.

 

 

I try not to end the painting until I see the “glow.” To achieve this end, I currently use  many layers of traditional oil glazes as well as a special technique called “Mixed Whites” which dates to the 15th century. I live, teach and paint in a northern California Artist’s colony  (Willits, Mendocino County).

 

Cynda Valle invites you to Like her on Facebook.

 

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