Margitta Dietrick-Welsh

 Two Time Art Party Participant • Art party supporter

Artist’s Website

margittadietrickwelsh.com

Artist’s Statement

I received my MFA in painting from University of California at Berkeley where I studied with Chris Brown, Joan Brown and Elmer Bischoff.  After living in a warehouse studio space in an industrial section of Oakland I moved to a 3 acre property in the coastal mountains of Santa Cruz. This move from an urban industrial environment to a pastoral countryside has been a major influence on my art work.

Much of my artwork deals with “tenuousness” in the sense of one’s precarious status and existence in nature. I use organic shapes and objects as symbols to expand on a spectrum of aspects of human existence: threat and defeat, fragility and strength, sensuality and sexuality. Some of the images are ungrounded, floating or surrounded by energy to emphasize the notion that things are always in a state of perpetual flux. My artwork is an attempt to maintain balance and control in my life.

I try to utilize techniques that are open to spontaneity like the fluidity of ink and watercolor with contrasting intense contour lines of charcoal. My goal is to reflect the duality of life: showing the contrast between airy and heavy, delicate and strong, in focus, out of focus, observation and mystery. I hope that the charcoal gives my work an edge and the ink and the watercolor give it a depth of space, softness and mystery.