Michelle A. Hegyi
I’ve never seen so many rainbows…
March 19 – April 27, 2019
Opening Reception :
Friday, March 22, 7-9 pm
Artist’s Statement :
Most of the pieces in this show were created while staying in the Bay Area of California during one of its rainiest winter seasons in decades, with torrential rains that would last for weeks. Trying to ‘look between the rain’ on day after day of rain and gray is not so easy. But going for my daily walks outside in the few minutes of either lighter rain, or if I were lucky, no rain, enabled me to see how beautiful it all is. Any color pops out instantly – I’m looking constantly at everything around me – I cannot stop taking photographs. My paintings begin with me being inspired by bits of things that I notice around me, usually for mere minutes – so fleeting – but the reward was another rainbow – even double rainbows – the feeling of the day really does change with the light…
When I begin a piece I do not know where the work is headed. My process consists of many experiments, and the work evolves through my search.
Much of my work is created by hand on the computer, but has the look and feel of real paint. I paint directly on the computer using a tablet and pressure-sensitive pen. More recently I’ve done more painting on the iPad Pro using the pressure-sensitive Apple Pencil and the Procreate app. This body of work includes experiments painting with the iPad Pro – it is a much more fluid medium than using my laptop computer – but the computer does give you more options – I still always use Photoshop to adjust and combine many, many layers, adjusting transparencies, shadows, etc. I may go through literally hundreds of iterations, as I painstakingly use the computer to adjust the composition, amount of transparency and opacity in each layer, the sharpness and the depth, and the light and the brightness and saturation and hue of each of the colors. I print each piece myself to be sure I’m getting the desired colors.
One pro and also con of using the computer is that it allows me to experiment in my search by making hundreds of pieces with thousands of variations. Things emerge and evolve as I continue.
As I create my piece I am continually struggling to try to get to simple. It’s not so easy, but I truly do enjoy the search.
— Michelle A. Hegyi
SELECTED WORK BY OTHER ARTISTS
SHOWING IN THIS EXHIBITION
Selected work from our WSG owner/artists, and the following visiting artists:
Cathryn Amidei, Carlye Crisler, Idelle Hammond-Sass, Marlee Hoffman, Maria Ruggiero, Juliet Seignious, Laura Seligman, Martha Rock Keller
