What artists have influenced you ? Diane McGregor

Diane McGregor is an artist who lives and works in Santa Fe.
She is currently in a group show of 5 abstract painters, that opened
July 10th and is up through Sept 27th, at The Preston Contemporary
Art Center in Mesilla, NM. You can see more work at
her blog Working Space.



Conferring with the Moon, 2009, oil on canvas, 30x30 inches

Here is what she says about her work:


"My work is informed by Nature—specifically the landscape, the weather, the seasons. These images are not literal representations of a place or environment, but a synthesis of shifting viewpoints and moods. Painting is my way of going beyond the arguments of the conscious mind, allowing the brushstroke to be a quiet reflection of each moment. The painting, then, becomes a record of a solitary, contemplative practice that is both private and shared.

I begin each painting by methodically weaving together horizontal and vertical brushstrokes. This repetitive technique generates a grid-like structure during the very earliest stages of the painting. I use fan brushes, which lend a delicate, complex weave to the webs of color and light. As the composition gradually emerges from the matrix of layered brushstrokes, a subtle balance of form, color, and texture is intuitively recognized and responded to. Some areas of the composition are carefully blended into luminous color fields, while other passages remain more painterly and spontaneous. The process is extremely meditative, taking me back and forth between emptiness and fullness, surrender and control."

Sensing, 2009, oil on canvas, 12 x 12 inches



"Crossing," 2009, oil on canvas, 18x18 inches


Here is my list of my top 15 artistic influences (not in any particular order):

1) Rebecca Purdum - contemporary artist who I've been following since the 80s - ethereal abstraction (shows at Tilton Gallery, NYC)

2) Sam Scott - my professor at University of Arizona, initiated me to the true painter's life and art

3) 12th Century Chinese Southern Song painters - poetry of nature and the seasons, veiling and unveiling of forms, contemplative technique

4) Georgia O'Keeffe - paint handling, morphology of forms (the major influence upon my early work)

5) Agnes Martin - repetition, natural order, poetry of painting, the grid

6) Mondrian- composition, subtle balances and rhythms within geometric structures

7) Jackson Pollock - the spontaneous gesture; the importance of psychology and the unconscious

8) Rothko - the luminosity of color

9) Bonnard - light and color, paint handling

10) Turner - abstraction of landscape, use of thick and thin paint, use of light and dark

11) Kandinsky - for the spiritual in art

12) Cezanne - the importance of the underlying structure of a painting

13) Monet - the way he perceived light and color, the broken brushstroke

14) Donald Judd - clean lines, no-nonsense Beauty, repetition, transcending the grid

15) Joan Mitchell - abstraction of nature, luscious use of paint, use of the white ground, importance of the single brushstroke

Thanks for the opportunity - this was a fun and challenging project!


Butterfly's Dream, 2009, oil on canvas, 24x19 inches