Joan McGuire

"My work combines a number of longtime visual interests: the abstracting of natural forms; pattern and repetition; and a conscious manipulation of pictorial space. 

The work is always process-driven. I find that when I repeatedly draw or paint a specific organic form, new shape languages emerge - at the same time that larger patterns develop. I also use stencils to create "screens" of repetitive motifs that interact with the hand-drawn forms, creating shallow or deep space as the case may be.

You could say I work back and forth between "the micro" and "the macro." In the close-up view, through repetition I discover new ways that paint can communicate "leaf" or "plant."  The bigger picture is about how an overall composition emerges that has elements of both surface pattern and pictorial space.    

It makes for visually active canvases. I like leaving traces of the painting's process and am a great lover of the physical nature of paint. It's my hope that viewers find new things to see each time they take a look."