Charlotte Jorgensen

My paintings are the visual way I experience the world. They tell my story and they tell yours. The spiral of a conch shell, the patina of rusted metal, an act of human kindness, all inspire me to paint. A line of poetry or the sinuosity of a river inspire me to paint. The universal nature of our collected stories inspires me to paint. There is a sacredness in all these things that nourishes me and my art.

As a naturalist, I have kept field journals for years , recording the world around me in words and sketches. These journals, and nature itself, were my first teachers. Through workshops with other artists and by feeling my way with brush, pen, pigment and paper, I continue to discover my own voice as an artist. I work primarily in water based paints, walnut and sumi ink, graphite and a multitude of collage materials—from scraps of paper used for testing colors, to the metal on wine bottles, to pages torn from bride magazines. In each painting I strive to capture both the ordinary and the sacred, both the personal and the universal.

“Instructions for living a life: pay attention, be astonished, tell about it.” Mary Oliver

Charlotte will be exhibiting in the Daniel Tucker Gallery October 2010