Marsha Connell

My paintings are about the spirit of place. Though many of my subjects are inspired by travels, I often find my most resonant themes closer to home, in Northern California, where I have dug in roots for over thirty years. Painting on location, en plein air, I observe mood, atmosphere, and the shapes of space. I reflect on how the sense of place mirrors my own interior landscape.

I begin by watching how the land and I evolve a relationship as I walk in the fields, dance with trees, seeing, feeling, sketching, recording. On canvas or paper, I follow the bones of an invisible gesture drawing. The pleasure of moving brush and paint keeps me from getting distracted by small details.

I do not require fidelity to local color; expressive color often feels more true. Watching, listening, and trusting intuition, I ask the painting what it needs. This infuses the representation with an abstract sensibility and can evoke a new place of some mystery, a place of the heart.