Artist Statement

This exhibition is a selection of work completed in the last year.

My garden has nurtured me through countless emotions and the ups and downs of experiences during this last year.  

My garden has offered me a place to reflect on personal challenges.  

My garden has offered a retreat from the world’s tragedies and turmoil witnessed on the nightly news reports. 

My garden has given me a peaceful place to enjoy the beauty of the miracles of nature.  My garden has offered me a calming retreat and a place to find a way to be hopeful.

The painting format is intentionally modest in size to allow for plein air and studio painting.  My small compositions of selections from my garden’s bounty offer a place for my mind to wander.  I pull together images of the flowers and pieces of discarded papers and scraps that find their way into my garden to create little stories or dreams.  Sometimes the compositions are thoughtful and then sometimes they are just playful. 

Sometimes the compositions are in direct response to images from the news, especially the war in Ukraine.  The loss of innocent lives and the aggression is unbearable. 

Sometimes the compositions are records of dreams with layers of space revealed, or pulled back, or torn out of context like stills from a film.  My use of vivid color or the absence of strong color can suggest reality or dream.

Sometimes the compositions are just images of the natural beauty that presents itself to me, like a capture of a moment in time.  Flowers bud, they bloom fully, and then they die —a series of events, a simple metaphor for life.

Sometimes the compositions are just playing with the arrangement of elements to suggest the idea of a portrait—again, a moment captured.

Sometimes the compositions are my mind wandering, taking the clues from nature present in my garden to just experience the pure pleasure of painting.

Sometimes I use text as a part of the composition to emphasize my intent.

Please experience the paintings and allow yourself to interpret as you like.

Michele Arcidiacono Krup 

Concord, California, February 2023